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BRENDA SANK UPON HER KNEES BESIDE THE BED. 


Frontispiece, 


Page s6 



Equal Partners 


BY 

HOWARD FIELDING 





ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

SEYMOUR M. STONE 


G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 




THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Receiveo 

AUG. 7 1901 



.CLASS CL XXa N«. 




COPY B. 


Copyright, igoi, by 
Charles W. Hooke 


Copyright, igoi, by 
G. W. Dillingham Co. 


Equal Partners 



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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

I. An Item of News 7 

11 . Among the Pictures i 3 

III. Captain Neale Resents an Imputation 25 

IV. The Easy Way 38 

V. The Patient at St. Winifred's 49 

VI. An Argument for the Defense 57 

VII. The Prosecution Is Heard* • • • 70 

VIII. Making Trouble 85 

IX. A Few Words with Mr. Robinson 93 

X. “Clarence” 104 

XI. St. Winifred’s Morning 113 

XII. Nerves and Hearts 124 

XIII. Elsie Chooses a Confidant 135 

XIV. “ Thrift, Horatio, Thrift ” 149 

XV. Mr. Robinson’s Message 1C4 

XVI. Elsie Perpetrates a Jest 17S 

XVII. The Runaway 191 

XVIII. A Few Words with a Profligate 207 

XIX. The Glint of Steel 218 

XX. Mr. Elmendorf with Regret Remains Honest. . . 230 

XXI. The Evidence of Dr. Blair 246 

XXII. The Only Thing That Matters 260 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 

CHAPTER I. 

AN ITEM OF NEWS. 

The little newsboy had the face of an imp, and he 
must have come up through the floor, as an imp should 
by all the best traditions. Surely the creature could 
not have squirmed through that tangle of humanity 
betwen Brenda and the door of the car. Yet there 
he was, standing close against her knees and looking 
straight into her face. 

Often the eyes of children seem to read our hearts. 
It is because they are new in the world and are con- 
tent with superficial views. Adults try to look in 
through our eyes, and they fail and we note the fail- 
ure; but children do not try, and we, seeing them 
satisfied, tremble for our inmost secrets. It is a part 
of the endless trickery of Nature. 

Brenda shook her head to intimate that she had no 
wish to buy the news, but the boy did not move. He 
continued to hold his papers before her, gazing over 


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them into her face meanwhile with an unwinking 
stare. 

It was probable that if she bought a paper the boy 
would pass on, so Brenda laid a hand upon her purse. 
The hand remained there rigid, and for some slow 
seconds the ragged urchin and the smooth product of 
all the social refinements were like figures on a canvas, 
both for fixity of pose and for balance of contrasting 
expressions, the child still calmly staring, his utter 
ignorance counterfeiting wisdom, the woman tense 
and eager, her eyes searching and unsatisfied. 

“ I will take this paper, she said, speaking with 
considerable effort, and she gave the boy a coin. 

Presently she stood upon the sidewalk of Broadway 
gazing across at the ugly brick front of the opera 
house with a confused notion that it could give her 
important information, but was perversely refusing to 
do so. 

She merely wished to know where she was, and the 
familiar scene impressed her as if she had not been 
there in a long time and had forgotten. Then her mind 
became clear. She paused in deep thought and at its 
end raised her hand as if to beckon to a cabman ; but, 
changing her purpose, she stepped into a doorway 
and read once more the item in the paper that the little 
boy had thrust under her eyes. 

At the first glance one who knew Brenda might have 


AN ITEM OF NEWS. 


9 


said that the story lay outside her world and could not 
interest her. However, it was what a journalist might 
call “ good news,” and therefore it was printed with 
the lines very far apart by way of emphasis, and it 
bore the marks of haste. Thus it ran: 

Elsie Miller, an actress living at 148 West Thirty-eighth 
street, was stabbed by some person unknown in her room this 
afternoon. 

It is a lodging house owned and occupied by Mrs. Alice Sim- 
mons. Miss Miller had lived in the rear room on the first floor 
for some months. 

The crime was discovered by a servant, who entered the 
room and found Miss Miller unconscious on the floor. Dr. A. 
G. Blair of 160 West Thirty-eighth street was hastily sum- 
moned, and he pronounced the wound mortal. It is just below 
the collar bone, on the left side, extending sharply downward 
within the body and undoubtedly piercing the outer wall of the 
heart. That Miss Miller should have survived the wound 
longer than .a few seconds is regarded as miraculous by Dr. 
Blair and other physicians, several of whom, including Ambu- 
lance Surgeon Carrington of St. Winifred’s Hospital, were at 
the house within a few minutes after .the discovery of the 
crime. 

The weapon was a hunting knife, having a long blade and a 
deer’s foot handle. The blade is peculiar, being much thinner 
than that of the ordinary hunting knife. It was found on the 
floor beside the body. A servant says that she has seen the 
knife in Miss Miller’s room within the last few days. A small 
piece from the end of the blade remains in the wound, making 
it doubly fatal. 

On a table in the room was a letter which may explain the 
whole affair. The police have it and refuse to divulge its con- 
tents, but it is known that the writer is Clarence M. Alden, a 
broker with an office on Broad street. He is the only son of 
the late St. Clair Alden, who practically disinherited him. 


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EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Miss Miller is a very beautiful girl, tall and of the brunette 
type. She is 20 years old. She played the part of Nannie in 
“The Honeybee,” an unsuccessful comedy produced in this city 
two years ago. Since then her work has not been seen here. 

Brenda walked down Broadway to Thirty-eighth 
street and turned westward. Immediately she per- 
ceived the motley crowd which the news of the crime 
had brought together, and she hesitated. Then, shut- 
ting her lips firmly together, she resumed her original 
purpose. 

The house numbered 148 had a high stoop and a 
yard the size of a dinner table, in which the grass was 
green and well watered, though the neighboring yards 
were brown with the heat and drought of that re- 
markable month of June. The house itself had an 
air of neatness and the flavor of home, but its privacy 
had been invaded first by crime and then by all the 
train that follows it. The door stood ajar for prying 
eyes, and the two gigantic policemen lounging at the 
head of the steps seemed the chief intruders rather than 
the guardians of the place. Brenda, for all that was 
upon her mind, felt the desecration and shuddered 
at it. 

The policemen, who had been leaning against the 
railings, stood erect and put their shoulders together 
as Brenda ascended the steps. They seemed to fill 
all the space and their heads to tower to the house top. 


AN ITEM OF NEWS. 


II 


But the thing must be gone through with now, and 
Brenda gathered all her force. 

“ I am a friend of Miss Miller,’’ she said. ** Please 
let me go in.” 

“ Nobody can go in now,” replied one of the men. 

“ Is she dead ? ” 

Brenda was framing other questions in her mind, 
but this one uttered itself. 

The policemen exchanged a glance. Then one of 
them replied with a single word, “ No.” At this 
moment there was a stir in the hall. Hearing it, the 
policemen began slowly to descend the steps, Brenda 
retreated before them, and not a word was spoken. 
She was pressed into the edge of the crowd at the foot 
of the stone stairs, and she remained there while a lit- 
ter was brought out on which lay something perfectly 
still and covered from end to end with a white cloth. 
It was put into a great black vehicle. A brisk young 
man, wearing a blue cap, and a grave, elderly man 
with a long white beard climbed in after it, and then 
the somber equipage moved away by the power resi- 
dent within it. And to Brenda the familiar spectacle 
of a self-propelling carriage assumed the aspect of a 
miracle, and all things seemed to move or stand by 
virtue of a new force, silent and resistless. 

“ Could I go in ? ” she whispered to the policeman 


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EQUAL PARTNERS. 


who had stationed himself beside her. “ Can I speak 
with some one who knows ? ” 

** Knows what ? ” he demanded. 

“ Whether she will recover, whether she has spoken.^^ 
The man looked at her with a ponderous curiosity. 

“ You wait here,” he said. Give me your name, 
and I’ll see what I can do ? ” 

Miss Maclane was affected by a touch of caution. 

“ No one knows me here,” she replied. “My name 
would mean nothing to them. But you may say that 
Miss Williams would like to speak with the physician 
who was called in — a Dr. Blair, I believe.” 

The policeman began to ascend the steps, but he 
paused at sight of two men who appeared above. One 
of them was of medium stature and very heavy, having 
the build of an ape, with preposterously long arms, 
which swung aimlessly when he moved, as if they 
were artificial. He wore the uniform of a police cap- 
tain. The other was of a conventional type by com- 
parison — that is, he looked like a human being, and 
Brenda noticed little else about him. Her gaze was 
fixed upon the coarse, scarred face of the captain, 
brutally cynical and smiling without purpose, like an 
image hacked out of wood. 

The policeman saluted his superior and addressed 
him in a low voice. Without waiting for him to finish, 
the captain turned quickly to the man who had come 


AN ITEM OF NEWS. 


13 


out of the house with him and asked a question which 
Brenda did not hear. When this man looked at her, 
Brenda became aware that he was tall and thin and 
that he wore a loose gray suit. 

“ I don’t know,” said the man in gray thoughtfully. 
‘‘ I can’t be sure.” 

The captain descended the steps and lifted his cap 
with the politeness of a trained animal. 

‘‘Miss Williams?” said he. “Yes, indeed. I un- 
derstand that you are a friend of Miss Miller, the girl 
that got hurt, and that you’d like to talk to Dr. Blair. 
This gentleman is Dr. Blair. So perhaps we’d better 
all go into the house, where we can talk more conve- 
nient.” 

Brenda tried to pass him, but she immediately found 
herself between the captain and one of the policemen, 
by whom she was escorted into the house, the physician 
walking ahead. Thus they came to a small parlor, 
opening from the hall, to the right. 

In the presence of Dr. Blair, whose manner was 
that of the world wherein she had moved, Brenda re- 
gained a part of her self possession. The simple ele- 
gance of the room, far beyond anything that she had 
expected, helped to put her at her ease, and she began 
to feel the sense of personal dominance to which she 
was accustomed. 

“ Dr. Blair,” she said, “ I really don’t know why I 


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EQUAL PARTNERS. 


should have come here. I am not a friend of Miss 
Miller. I am merely interested in her. Seeing the 
story of her terrible misfortune in a newspaper by the 
merest accident, I obeyed an unaccountable impulse 
and came to this house.’’ 

‘‘An unaccountable impulse,” said the captain in a 
mechanically responsive voice, as if he had been an 
echo. 

“ I can tell you very little,” replied Blair. No one 
knows who committed the crime nor why it was 
done ” 

But will she die ? Such a young girl, with so 
much to hope for, and they say she was very 
beautiful ! ” 

She was, poor child,” responded the physician. 
** And that fact may or may not have had something 
to do with her misfortune. As to her chance of re- 
recovery, I greatly fear — indeed, to be frank with you, 
I doubt whether she is living at this moment.” 

Brenda was as white as paper, and her hands were 
twined together. 

“ She has not spoken ” — she began, and it was the 
captain who replied. 

“ Not a word,” said he. “ But we shan’t need any- 
thing from her. We shall get to the bottom of this 
affair all right.” 

Brenda turned slowly toward him. 


AN ITEM OF NEWS. 


IS 


The name of a gentleman,” said she, an acquaint- 
ance of mine, was mentioned in the newspaper account, 
a Mr. Alden. Of course it is impossible that he should 
have had any connection with this wretched crime, but 
perhaps he knew the young woman and ” 

“ Yes,” responded the captain, “ they were ac- 
quainted. And, by the way, perhaps you’re familiar 
with the young gentleman’s handwriting. We found 
a note on the letter head of his firm. Let me see, what 
did I do with it? Oh, here it is. Perhaps you’d like 
to glance it through.” 

He extended his hand, but Brenda did not take the 
sheet of paper which he offered. 

‘‘ I could not read this,” she said, with a slight shud- 
der. “ It was not meant for me.” 

A faint expression of surprise humanized the offi- 
cer’s face for a moment. 

"‘That don’t make any difference,” he said. “It’ll 
have to be published. Everybody’ll read it.” 

Brenda glanced at Dr. Blair, who bowed his head. 

“ In that case,” she said, “ though it seems an out- 
rageous intrusion ” 

“ There’s no help for it,” rejoined the captain, with 
a grin, which he used in place of a frown. “ We’ve got 
to find the person that done this deed, and we’ve got to 
make use of this note to do it.” 

Brenda took the paper and read these words : 


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EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ My Dearest Dear — All goes so well that I must send 
word to you at once. I can’t wait till evening, when I may 
see you, and, indeed, dear love, there is some doubt whether 
I shall be able to quit work before midnight. At any rate, 
it bids fair to be so late that I should not dare scandalize 
Mrs. Simmons by calling upon you. So I write this, and 
make bold to put a little money into it — five hundreds. Don’t 
let them frighten you. I remember perfectly that you weren’t 
to touch a penny, but I rely upon the letter that I wrote last 
evening to knock all your arguments into smithereens. I 
thoughit of a lot of points after leaving you, .and I cited the 
best precedents. If a fellow is rich — as I am to-day, thank 
heaven — he may help his sweetheart to buy her trousseau. If 
you don’t believe it, write to your mother, and while you’re 
waiting for an answer buy the pretty clothes anyhow. Ah, 
my beloved” 

Brenda had come to the end of the first sheet. Her 
face, that had been so pale, was flushed, and her voice 
was not quite steady as she said : 

can’t read any more. It is dishonorable and un- 
necessary.” 

The captain took the letter, and read it to the end, 
in a stumbling voice, with half an eye on Brenda all the 
time. 

“ Ah, my beloved, we shall be so happy ! Youth, and love, 
and money, and the whole world before us — the summer in 
Norway, the fall in the great cities, the winter on whatever 
Mediterranean shore you like the best, and next June shall 
find us in Venice, and our twelfth honeymoon in the sky. 
Think of this, sweetest of travelers, w'hose favorite book has 
always been. the atlas. Think of it as you go shopping this 
afternoon, with your pocket full of money. It is all set- 
tled; the chains are broken. We are to be married as soon 


AN ITEM OF NEWS. 


17 


as your mother can come east to behold the ceremony. And 
then away to see the world, and the shrines of twenty cen- 
turies of lovers. My heart and my faith to you. 

“ Clarence.'' 

In the captain^s mouth these love words had the 
sound of blasphemies, and Brenda shrank back to the 
limit of the room with Blair, who seemed to be scarcely 
less affected by the desecration. 

** The money wasn’t found,” said the officer after 
a brief, shrewd scrutiny of Brenda. “ The note was 
on the table, but none of those hundred dollar bills 
that we read about. Come; I’ll show you where we 
found it.” 

“ I don’t think I want to go in there,” said Brenda 
faintly. ** I am going to the hospital to see whether I 
can be of any help to her.” 

“You’ll have to arrange that through the police,” 
was the reply, “ and it can’t be done until I get some 
word from there. So I suggest that we take another 
look at the scene of the crime.” 

He stepped back from the door, and Brenda passed 
out of the room, intending to leave the house, but again 
she found herself between the captain and one of his 
men, and again she obeyed an unspoken order, follow- 
ing one of them while the other followed her. 


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EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER II. 

AMONG THE PICTURES. 

Elsie's room opened straight from the hall, at the 
rear. There was a sort of vestibule, with a sliding, 
glass-paneled door at the farther end, and this space 
was divided lengthwise by a curtain, behind which 
Brenda saw the gleam of a great white tub, an unusual 
luxury in cheap lodgings. 

Beyond the vestibule was a room of good height 
and size, with a shallow alcove on the left, in which 
stood a pretty brass bedstead. Upon the right was an 
unused open fireplace beneath an old-fashioned marble 
mantel-shelf, which was Covered with a quaint and pic- 
turesque collection of souvenirs. 

There were two tall windows in the southern wall. 
The lower sashes were hinged at the sides, opening 
inward, and one might step out upon a wooden balcony 
of the length of the room, which was the width of the 
house. 

Some crude, familiar pictures hung upon the walls. 
Obviously they antedated Elsie’s coming, and ex- 


AMONG THE PICTURES. 


19 


pressed Mrs. Simmons's idea of home decoration. 
Elsie's contribution to the adornment of the scene 
consisted almost entirely of photographs of men and 
'women. One might guess the calling of the tenant 
after a glance at the portraits, for nearly all of these 
people were obviously in ** the profession.” They ap- 
peared singly or in groups formed by fastening the 
photographs together with dainty bits of ribbon, so 
that half a dozen might be suspended in the fashion 
of a banner. 

Whatever may be said of the artistic value of this 
decoration, it certainly brightened the room. It was 
impossible to be lonely with so much company and such 
vivacious people. Nine in ten of the women were 
smiling, and many wore fancy dress. The men strug- 
gled to seem chivalrous and courtly, except the come- 
dians, most of whom were in grotesque attire. Two 
photographs, larger than the average, and well placed 
between the windows, represented young men in the 
dress of cavaliers, with drawn swords in their hands. 
There they had stood, these friends of hers, thus armed, 
with their eyes upon her when the assassin had struck 
her down. 

“ From all I can learn,” said the captain, “ she must 
have been about here when it happened.” 

He took his place beside a couch that was between 
the windows and turned his face to the wall. 


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EQUAL PARTNERS. 


The murderer,” he continued, “ was behind her. 
Tlie murderer pulled her head back, and stabbed al- 
most straight down. The girl fell on the couch ; here’s 
the blood. And the murderer, convinced that she was 
dead, dropped the knife and fled.” 

He turned to Brenda with a questioning leer. She 
was more calm than she had been ; her mind was more 
alert. She had noticed his peculiar avoidance of a 
pronoun, and she asked him, without emotion, 
whether there was any doubt that the assailant was 
a man. 

“ We don’t pretend to know anything about it,” he 
replied, ‘" but there are certain circumstances which 
lead us to suspect that it might have been a woman. 
A gentleman who was passing the house about the 
hour w^hen this thing must have been done saw a 
woman coming out. Now, except for Miss Miller, the 
lodgers in this house are all men, and we can’t get any 
trace of this woman. We don’t know how or when 
she got into the house, nor what she did here. It’s sure 
that she didn’t ring the bell nor make any more noise 
than she could help. Nobody let her in, so far as we 
can learn, and we’ve covered the ground pretty thor- 
oughly.” 

“ Perhaps she didn’t come in at all,” said Brenda. 
“ She may only have ascended the steps, and then, find- 


AMONG THE PICTURES. 


21 


ing that this was not the house that she had supposed 
it to be ” 

Or changing her mind for any reason/’ the cap- 
tain continued. Quite right. I see your point. But 
the woman wore a heavy veil ; she seemed to be some- 
what excited, and she hurried away eastward I 

think you said eastward, Dr. Blair ? ” 

“ Toward Broadway,” responded the physician with 
embarrassment. 

“ It’s a pity you didn’t notice her more particularly,” 
said the captain. I’d give a dollar or two for her 
description just now.” 

“ You can’t get it from me,” replied Dr. Blair. 
** There was no reason why I should pay any par- 
ticular attention to her. She was a well dressed, stylish 
looking young woman, and that’s all I know about 
her.” 

Brenda looked at him steadily for some seconds. 

“ Dr. Blair,” said she, “ What did this officer ask 
you on the steps just before I came in? ” 

The doctor blushed and glanced uneasily at the cap- 
tain. 

I asked him if he could pick that woman out of 
a crowd,” said the captain, ‘‘and he told me that he 
didn’t know; he couldn’t be sure.” 

“ I fancied that it might have been something of the 
sort,” rejoined Brenda. “ And now. Captain ” 


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She paused, and the officer supplied the name. 

“ Captain Neale, at your service,” said he, with a 
bow. 

Thank you. And now. Captain Neale, I wish you 
would get the message from the hospital for which you 
are waiting as quickly as you can, for I am impatient 
to go there.” 

‘‘ I am expecting it any minute,” he replied. '' Ah, 
perhaps this is it.” 

A tall young man, of a German type of countenance, 
with wide blue eyes, entered the room and stood by the 
door, as if he had no errand, but had simply been 
impelled by a gentle, superior force. There was silence 
for half a minute. Then the captain advanced to the 
young man, and led him by the arm into the vestibule. 

“ What are you here for, Elmendorf ? ” he demanded 
in a low voice. “ Headquarters don^t need to mix up 
in this case. I can look out for it.” 

“ Orders,” replied Elmendorf. “ That's all I know. 
The chief wants a report. 

Well, he’ll get one, won’t he? ” asked the captain. 

Now, see here ; don’t take a step till I say so. I 
know what I’m about.” 

Elmendorf strolled into the room, and sat down in 
a large chair, with a sigh. Then, preceiving that 
Brenda was standing, he rose hastily, very much to the 
young lady’s surprise. 


AMONG THE PICTURES. 


23 


“ By the way/’ said the captain, “ while we’re wait- 
ing I want to ask you about Mr. Alden. We’ve sent 
word to his office, but he isn’t there. They don’t know 
where he’s gone. You knew him quite well, didn’t 
you? I noticed how quick you recognized his hand- 
writing.” 

** Yes,” said Brenda, I knew him quite well.” 

‘‘ And you knew Miss Miller? ” 

I never saw her,” replied Brenda, after a moment’s 
hesitation. 

‘‘Why, Miss Williams,” exclaimed Neale, with a 
grotesque attempt to speak softly, “ I thought you said 
you were a friend of hers ! ” 

“ I hardly knew what to say to the policeman at the 
door,” replied Brenda calmly. “ I was very anxious 
to get in. And let me add that I am at present very 
anxious to get out.” 

“ Just one minute,” said the captain. “ You knew 
Mr. Alden. Now, did you happen to know of any 
young woman that he was particularly sweet on ? ” 

“ I have heard,” replied Brenda slowly, “ that he 
was at one time engaged to a girl who had a great 
deal of money, and some social standing, but I under- 
stand that that has been broken off. It can have no 
possible bearing upon this crime, which was plainly the 
work of a thief.” 

“ You’re thinking of the money,” said Neale, caress- 


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EQUAL PARTNERS. 


ing his projecting chin with a great, square hand, “the 
money Alden is alleged to have put into the letter. It 
can’t be found, and that’s a fact.” 

“Is alleged to have put into the letter ! ” exclaimed 
Brenda. “Why, he says so himself.” 

“Yes,” responded the captain, “that’s what he says.” 

An interval of silence followed. Brenda was lean- 
ing forward, her right hand resting on the table, her 
eyes intent upon the officer’s face. They were gray 
eyes ordinarily, and their expression spoke of the cul- 
tivated self-restraint by which the natural emotions are 
held in check. On this occasion, however, they seemed 
to be of a dark blue, and to emit a light which even 
Dr. Blair, who saw the lady in profile, did not fail 
to perceive. 


CAPTAIN NEALE RESENTS AN IMPUTATION. 


25 


CHAPTER III. 

CAPTAIN NEALE RESENTS AN IMPUTATION. 

Some one put a key into the lock of the front door, 
and the faint sound of it was distinctly audible in that 
room. The growling voice of a policeman in the hall 
said : “ Hold on ! You can’t go ” 

And seemingly in the same instant a young man 
appeared upon the threshold of the room. He took 
two steps forward, and then halted, the others facing 
him. 

He was one of those men whose tremendous vital 
energy declares itself unmistakably. As he stood there, 
perfectly still, the power within him seemed to affect 
the air. It was as when one feels the tension of an 
engine that is at rest, but ready. When such a man 
advances, neither the ordinary obstacles nor even his 
own will can stop him. 

Brenda,” he said, in a singularly restrained voice, 
very ill-suited to his words. “ Why in the name of 
heaven are you here ? ” 


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“ If I know/’ she answered, “ it is because I wanted 
to help her, because I couldn’t have her die like this. 
I” 

“Where is she?” 

“ They have taken her to a hospital — St. Wini- 
fred’s.” 

The young man snatched up his hat, which had 
fallen to the floor. 

“ Wait a minute ! ” exclaimed Neale. “ You’re 
Alden — Clarence M. Alden?” 

“ Yes.” 

“Well, I want to talk to you. Wait! If you go 
down there you can’t get in, nor find out anything; 
that’s orders. You’ll get more information here.” 

“ Is she living? ” demanded Alden. 

“ Yes,” replied the captain. “ If she dies, I shall 
know of it within five minutes, and that’s quicker than 
you could learn of it anywhere else. Let me manage 
this. I’ll take good care of you. I’ll see that you get 
every word of news. Meanwhile let’s get down to busi- 
ness. You sent that note to her? ” 

“ I did.” 

“ With $500 in it?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ When?” 

“ At' ten minutes after two. I sent it by John Robin- 
son, a clerk in my office.” 


CAPTAIN NEALE RESENTS AN IMPUTATION. 27 

** Where is he now? ” 

“ I don't know/' answered Alden. I didn't wait 
for him to come back. Now, answer my question. 
Who did this thing? " 

Neale spread his hands abroad with a grotesque 
gesture intended to disclaim the possession of the in- 
formation. 

“ We're all at sea," he said. Somebody got into 
this room, and stabbed the girl with this knife." 

He suddenly lifted a newspaper from the table, and 
disclosed the weapon beneath it. The long blade was 
open, and visibly stained with blood. Brenda’s hand 
had been within six inches of it, and at the sight she 
started back with such alarm that Dr. Blair stretched 
out his arm to support her. She did not fall, however, 
but stood rigid, staring at Alden. 

The color rushed to his face. He put up his hand 
and pushed back the tangle of light brown hair that 
was lying moist upon his forehead. 

'' Recognize it ? " said Neale, with his mirthless grin. 

“ It is mine,” replied Alden, in the same repressed 
and steady tone that he had used throughout this scene. 
** I gave it to her." 

When?" 

“A few days ago,” said Alden. I don't exactly 
remember.” 

“ Queer present,” rejoined the captain, “ for a girl.” 


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EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ She was cutting some pictures out of the maga- 
zines,” replied Alden. I happened to have the knife 
in my pocket. She used it, and I didn^t take it back.” 

The captain slowly nodded his head, as one who has 
reached the end of a topic, and is preparing for the 
next. 

“ And now,” said he, how long have you known 
this young lady ? ” 

He waved his hand toward Brenda. 

“ I have known Miss Maclane a long time,” said 
Alden. ‘‘ Why do you ask ? ” 

‘‘ Miss Maclane, eh? ” said the captain, elevating the 
strange tufts of parti-colored hair that were his eye- 
brows. “ I understood that her name was Williams.” 

I have done an absurdly foolish thing,” said 
Brenda, addressing Alden. I was afraid my name 
would be published, and so I tried to deceive these 
people.” 

‘‘ Big mistake,” rejoined Captain Neale, shaking his 
head solemnly. This whole story will have to come 
out, and if the facts are known to the police at the 
start it will come out straight; otherwise there's no 
telling what the reporters will do with it.” 

“ There’s no reason whatever,” said Alden, why 
Miss Maclane should be brought into this affair.” 

‘‘ There isn’t, eh ? ” said the captain. Why is she 
here ? Sympathy for a woman that she says she never 


CAPTAIN NEALE RESENTS AN IMPUTATION. 29 

saw? No; I guess we’ll have to have something 
better.” 

“ If you don’t get it,” said Alden, what then? ” 

“ I’ll have to hold her as a witness.” 

“ You mean that you will put me under arrest? ” de- 
manded Brenda, her face, and even her lips, absolutely 
colorless. 

'' I’ll have to,” said the captain. 

'' And suppose that I answer all your questions 
now?” she asked. 

Neale struck his hand down upon the table. 

“ You can go home just as soon as you’ve done it,” 
he declared, and at that moment a man in plain clothes, 
but with the unmistakable stamp of the police upon 
him, entered the room and saluted his superior. 

Excuse me for a minute,” said Neale, and, accom- 
panied by the man who had just appeared upon the 
scene, he stepped out into the hall. 

Brenda turned to Dr. Blair, who was leaning 
against the mantelpiece. 

“ Dr. Blair,” she whispered, you will not say that 
it was I whom you saw leaving this house ? ” 

“ No,” replied the physician slowly; I will not.” 

What does this mean ? ” demanded Alden. 

Dr. Blair regarded Alden steadily for some seconds 
before he said with that careful measuring of words 
that doctors learn: 


30 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ I have informed the police that as I was passing 
this house, very near to the time when this deed was 
done, I saw a person — a woman — come out and walk 
away hurriedly toward Broadway.” 

A woman ! ” repeated Alden, as if speaking with- 
out volition. 

She cannot be accounted for,” continued the doc- 
tor. ‘*No one knows who she is, or why she was here, 
or how she got into the house. As to the last point, 
however, I will say this : I had a room in this house for 
a few weeks while repairs were in progress at No. i6o, 
where I live, and I then noticed that the spring lock 
on the front door did not always hold. If the lock has 
not been repaired, there may be an explanation of some 
mysterious points in the case.” 

If there had been an eye upon Detective Elmendorf 
at this moment, it would have noted that he was much 
interested, but no one was looking at him. He him- 
self was observing Brenda closely. 

Alden had begun to pace the floor, his hand upon 
his forehead. 

“ I can’t stay here any longer,” he said suddenly. 

'' I must see Elsie. I must know Jack ! How 

came you here ? ” 

The question was addressed to a young man who 
entered with Captain Neale. He was, in his normal 
state, a rather handsome fellow, with the ox eyes that 


CAPTAIN NEALE RESENTS AN IMPUTATION. 


31 


the Greeks admired (for women) and a broad fore- 
head above them, but in this moment his face was dis- 
torted with excitement, and striped with perspiration 
that trickled from his forehead. The total effect was 
somewhat grotesque, especially because the man was 
inclined to fatness, and was a trifle conspicuous in the 
matter of attire. 

“This is dreadful, dreadful I he cried. “I can't 
believe it.” 

“ You’re Mr. Robinson, who carried the note to Miss 
Miller,” said Neale. “ That’s why I sent a man to your 
house.” 

“ Yes,” said Robinson, turning to Alden. “ I didn’t 
go back to the office immediately. I went over to the 
place where I live. I was just going down town again 
when a policeman met me at the door.” 

“ Did you know what was in that note ? ” asked 
Neale. 

“ I knew there was money,” was the reply, “ but I 
didn’t know how much. It was sealed when Mr. 
Alden gave it to me. Hie said there was money in it. 
That was why I brought it instead of giving it to a 
messenger boy.” 

“ What happened here ? ” the captain asked. 

“ Nothing,” answered Robinson. “ I gave the note 
to Elsie” 

“ Who ? ” said the captain. 


32 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘To Miss Miller; that is what I said. I gave the 
note to Miss Miller, and she opened it by the window. 

\ I didn’t see any money. I wasn’t in the room ten 
seconds — merely long enough to ask if there was any 
answer, and she said no. Then I went away.” 

“ Meet anybody ? ” 

“ The servant who let me in was passing through 
the hall as I went out.” 

“ That’s important,” said the captain. “ It fixes you 
all right. The servant stopped at Miss Miller’s door, 
knocked, asked a question, and got an answer. Then 
she went along down stairs.” 

“ Fixes me ! ” gasped Robinson. “ Is anybody crazy 
enough to think I did this ? ” 

“ No,” said the captain. “ You are out of it. And 
now, Mr. Alden, let me tell you that I’ve just had a 
report from the hospital. The girl is alive, and the 
doctors think she has a chance.” 

“What does she say?” exclaimed Robinson. 

“ She hasn’t said anything yet,” replied the captain. 
“ And now let’s get on with our little affairs here. I 
guess you can’t help us any, Mr. Robinson, so if you’ll 

just take a seat in the parlor ” He waited till the 

young man had passed out of the room. “ Now, Miss 
Maclane, I’d like to know a little more about you, if 
it’s perfectly agreeable.” 


CAPTAIN NEALE RESENTS AN IMPUTATION. 


33 


“ I am the daughter of Duncan Maclane,” said 
Brenda. 

At the mention of this wealthy and widely known 
man Neale softly whistled. 

‘‘ It ain’t possible,” he said, “ that you are the young 
lady with a lot of money, and a high social position, 
that you mentioned awhile ago as being engaged to our 
friend here?” 

I am the woman,” replied Brenda. 

‘^And the engagement’s been broken off? 
When?” 

“ Captain ” began Alden, but the officer raised 

his hand. 

'' A bargain’s a bargain,” he said. I was to have 
the truth. When was the engagement broken off? ” 

” This afternoon,” answered Brenda firmly. “ I 
went down to Mr. Alden’s office at half-past one. I 
had expected to see him last evening, but ” 

'‘He didn’t come?” 

Brenda inclined her head. 

" I went to his office,” she said, " and in the con- 
versation between us there I released him from his 
engagement.” 

“ That must have been a hard blow for you, Mr. 
Alden,” said the captain. 

" What do you mean ?” demanded Alden. ** If you 
have the delicacy to appreciate my feeling ” 


34 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


I was thinking especially about your business/’ 
said Neale. “ Fm told your firm is in the last ditch, 
and that your engagement to Duncan Maclane’s daugh- 
ter is about all that holds you up. That’s what my man 
told me just now.” 

“ He told you a lie,” said Alden, but with the same 
monotonous tone, as if his utterance was mechanical 
and his mind upon another matter. My afiPairs were 
never before so prosperous as they are to-day.” 

That won’t do,” responded the captain. “ I have 
positive proof ” 

“ You know nothing about it,” said Alden. “ I have 
other interests than those of my firm.” 

** What other interests ? ” 

** I decline to answer.” 

“ Where did you go when you left your office after 
sending that note ? ” 

** I will not tell you.” 

“Why not?” queried the captain in his most per- 
suasive tone. “ Oh, perhaps you don’t know these 
other gentlemen. They’ll step into the hall or out to 
the balcony, Fve no doubt.” 

“ It will make no difference,” replied Alden. 

“ What you say will be confidential, of course.” 

“ Captain Neale,” said Alden, “ this is a business 
secret that is worth a good deal of money. If I should 


CAPTAIN NEALE RESENTS AN IMPUTATION. 


35 


tell it to any man, he could force payment for his 
silence.” 

You don’t mean to say that I’d do a thing like 
that? ” demanded Neale. 

“ I have no wish to offend,” said Alden, “ but you 
want the truth, and you shall have it. Your reputa- 
tation, like that of many another man high up in the 
department, is bad — as bad as it can be. Remembering 
that this business matter involves others than myself, 
I won’t trust you with a hint of it. That is my last 
word on that subject.” 

Neale’s face turned red and white in strange, irregu- 
lar spots. 

Now hear a word from me,” he said. I’ve been 
looking you up. You are a ruined man. You were 
engaged to this girl, and it was all that saved you. But 
you couldn’t be honest even with her. You made love 
to this Elsie Miller, and you neglected Miss Maclane, 
and she wouldn’t stand for it. But by that time you 
were so involved with Miss Miller that you couldn’t 
break away. So what did you do? Why, you wrote 
her a note telling a fairy story about a lot of money, 
knowing that the note would be found and would make 
the case look like robbery. You told her how busy you 
were, and five minutes afterward you quit work and 
came up town. You had a key to this house; you 
came here ” 


36 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Do you mean to accuse me of this ? ’’ 

The words came from between Alden’s teeth, and he 
strode toward Neale, who put the table between them 
and drew his revolver. 

Wallace!’^ he called. 

A policeman entered from the hall. 

“ That man is under arrest,” said Neale. “ Take 
him in.” 

'' This is monstrous,” said Alden, but he spoke 
coolly. “ You shall answer for it.” 

'' We’ll talk about that later,” rejoined the captain. 
“ You go with that man.” 

Brenda crossed the room quickly and took Alden’s 
hand. 

“ I will do everything that I can for you,” she said, 
“ and for her.” 

“You’re coming along, too,” said Neale. “No; 
I’ll stand by what I said. Go home.” 

Alden opened his mouth to speak and then closed it 
again. He turned and went out of the room with the 
policeman, Brenda following immediately, and Dr. 
Blair a moment later. Elmendorf and Neale remained. 

The captain dropped into a chair. 

“ I don’t know as I done right,” he said. 

Elmendorf walked across the room and looked at 
a picture on the wall between the windows. It was 
a photographic copy of Neierstein’s painting of 


CAPTAIN NEALE RESENTS AN IMPUTATION. 37 


“ Tantalus/^ The unfortunate king who divulged the 
secrets of Zeus was represented chained to the rock 
starving while the fruit-laden boughs waved just be- 
yond his reach. It was a painful picture, quite out 
of keeping with all else in the room, and Elmendorf 
regarded it curiously. A few lines, telling the legend, 
were printed below, and the detective read them. 

“ Well, he looks it,*' he said, glancing up at the face 
of Tantalus. “ And, by the way, Neale, you don't 
think Alden did this thing, do you ? " 

Not on your life ! " said the captain. The case 
is perfectly plain. It may be that I didn't do the smart 
thing." 

Elmendorf turned away. 

** Arresting a man for murder just because he calls 
you a thief when you know you are one," said he, 
** isn't exactly my idea of wisdom." 

Neale sprang to his feet and faced Elmendorf 
angrily. 

“ Not with me, Joe Neale," said the detective. ‘‘ It 
won't work." 


38 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE EASY WAY. 

Policeman Wallace did not consider it necessary 
to subject his prisoner to the indignity of handcuffs, 
but he kept a firm hold on Alden's left arm just above 
the elbow as they left the house. Alden seemed to be 
entirely indifferent to this attention. When he reached 
the sidewalk, he paused, bringing his captor to a halt. 
The cab in which he had come was beside the curb, and 
Alden, using his free hand, helped Brenda into the 
vehicle. 

It is not customary for New York policemen to 
dally while their prisoners perform the gentle cour- 
tesies of polite society, but Alden's deadly calmness 
prevailed in this instance. 

“ Home ? ” he asked. 

“ St. Winifred’s,’’ replied Brenda. ** Please tell him 
to drive fast.” 

Alden gave the order and then, addressing the young 
woman, said : “ I shall be there soon. They dare not 
hold me.” 


THE EASY WAY. 


39 


Brenda would have spoken, but the horse suddenly 
started under the whip, and the cab lurched on the 
rough pavement. The last glimpse of Alden lifting 
his hat while the huge policeman gripped his left arm 
remained with Brenda like a persistent nightmare 
that survives the dawn. The conventional courtesy 
stuck in her mind. It was a little picture of the old 
days, the time of small pleasures and easy living, so 
sharply brought to an end. Everything in life had 
suddenly become difficult. Words must be weighed 
and one's conduct guided by a plan, not left to mold 
itself into the forms of mere usage. And thus she 
came to think of what she should do and say at the 
hospital. How meet the emergencies that might arise ? 
Had Elsie regained her senses? Had she spoken, or 
did she lie dead at that moment in some Small, bare 
room, watched by a stolid nurse who yawned and 
stretched herself as the day's work drew to a close? 
A portrait in a velvet frame — Elsie's mother beyond 
a doubt — recurred sharply to Brenda's memory, and 
she shuddered. It had stood on the dressing table — a 
woman not yet old; a pretty, smiling face. It was 
dreadful to think of that face smiling there all that 
afternoon, the eyes looking yet seeing nothing, the 
lips unable to utter a cry. 

I must put it out of my mind," said Brenda to 
herself. 


40 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


At the hospital there was very little to be learned; 
nothing to be done. An elderly man who seemed to be 
in authority said: “The child is still living. We can- 
not predict the ultimate result of the injury as yet. 
You cannot see her nor send any message. Leave 
your address, and we will communicate with you in 
accordance with the event, whatever it may be. It will 
be useless to wait. If you are able to see her at all, 
there will be no great pressure of time.^’ 

Brenda rode to her home, and as the cab drifted 
through the clamoring whirlpools of the Avenue she 
was thinking that the white haired man had spoken 
almost tenderly of Elsie as “ the child.'^ 

There was no mother in the Maclane mansion. She 
had been dead ten years. There was an aunt, an 
amiable old lady for whom Brenda entertained no little 
affection, but in the serious affairs of life she would 
as readily have taken counsel with her brother, who 
was not yet 12. Her father, for so strong a man as he 
was in the world of finance, was a weak man at home. 
He had no gift of sympathy, a deficiency which may 
have accounted for both the strength and the weak- 
ness. Brenda told him the story of her adventures as 
it has been here set forth, and he received it with 
painful surprise and lively alarm. 

“Why did you go there?” he exclaimed. “What 
possible interest could you have in this wretched girl ? ” 


THE EASY WAY. 


41 


“My dear father,” she replied, with an excellent 
counterfeit of a smile, “ let me remind you that my 
affection for Mr. Alden has been the one sincere emo- 
tion of a sadly artificial life. When I saw that terrible 
story, the first feeling I had was sympathy for Clar- 
ence. I wanted to do something for him, and I 
couldn't think of anything else but to go to her.” 

“ The papers will be full of it ! ” he groaned. “ I 
have always been afraid of Alden. You know I could 
never reconcile myself to him.” 

“ I remember that you always admired him,” said 
she. 

“A good many people admire him,” exclaimed the 
old gentleman impatiently, “ and they’re all afraid of 
him. He is a headlong, reckless, unsafe man, and I 
never should have permitted you to become engaged to 
him.” 

Brenda smiled without effort this time. She knew 
that her will would dominate her father’s in any con- 
flict, and that he would permit her to have her own way 
to the end of the story. 

“ I am not engaged to him any more,” said she, and 
her father admitted cordially that that was something 
to be thankful for, 

“ He has behaved most dishonorably to you,” he 
added, 

“ I have no complaint to make of Mr. Alden’s con- 


42 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


duct/' said Brenda. I shall not break my heart for 
him, but I wish he might have loved me. Let us go in 
to dinner." 

Mr. Maclane was considerably surprised to observe 
as the meal progressed that his daughter ate with a 
good appetite. Having a shrewd faculty of observa- 
tion, he perceived at last that Brenda's body was at- 
tending to the whole matter of its own sustenance and 
that her mind was elsewhere. As anxiety rises in in- 
tensity the thinking part of us interferes more and 
more with the grosser envelope and the processes of 
enlightened selfishness therein implanted by Nature, 
but there comes a point of separation whence the mind 
goes its own way and the body likewise, to the great 
betterment of the latter temporarily. 

After dinner Brenda and her father went into the 
library, a room of which he made great use for 
smoking, much preferring it to the apartment espe- 
cially designed for the indulgence of that pernicious 
habit. 

Brenda fell at once into deep thought, and her 
father, after several futile attempts to talk with her, 
sat down by a desk and endeavored to occupy himself 
with certain household accounts. He was a man of 
large frame and little flesh, rather handsome in a 
mildly aquiline style and with eyes like Brenda's, 
but gentler and with more of the blue tint in them. 


THE EASY WAY. 


43 


There was something womanish about him, hard to 
trace, but probably in his manner altogether and not 
in his looks. A nervous irritability made utter trifles 
tragic for him. Everything worried him more or less. 
At the desk there, as he puttered with the accounts, his 
pen fell from the rest where he had placed it, and he 
picked it up, with a groan. 

His pleasures were few. His home was something 
to him ; his pride, of various kinds, a staff to lean upon. 
He had considerable affection for his son and rather 
more for Brenda. He thanked God daily that her 
health was so good ; but, even so, he was always afraid 
that it might fail. 

His chief joy in life was a business journey. He 
could get nothing out of a pleasure trip because of the 
obvious waste of time. But to be one of three or four 
moderately congenial men absolutely forced to travel, 
preferably in some one’s private car, perhaps to see 
a bit of industrial property in the West, or even no 
further than Washington, when there was a bill affect- 
ing business interests before Congress — that was genu- 
ine relaxation. It was necessary to go, and the respon- 
sibility for getting there was on the engineer in the cab 
ahead. One might smoke a good cigar meanwhile, 
and speak of small matters. When one has reached 
a certain stage of nervousness, it is more tranquilizing 
to ride sixty-five miles an hour under another man’s 


44 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


guidance than to sit still at home as a result of one's 
own volition. 

To Brenda and her father in the library entered Wil- 
lett, the butler, with a troubled countenance. It ap- 
peared that two men desired to see Miss Maclane, and 
that their names were Barnes and Haggerty. 

“ They mentioned a Captain Neale, miss," said the 
butler, ‘‘ presuming to say that you’d understand." 

Brenda rose hastily. 

‘‘ They have come to take me to the hospital," she 
said. “ Tell them I will be ready in a few minutes, and 
see about the carriage." 

Are these people policemen ? " demanded Mr. 
Maclane. 

Well, sir, I took them to be what they call ward 
detectives," ventured the butler, “and I dropped the 
hint to James that he’d do well to keep an eye on them. 
There’s things in the small reception room, sir, as 
would go into a man’s pocket." 

“You did quite right, Willett," said Mr. Maclane. 
“ Brenda, my child, I suppose it’s entirely use- 
less " 

“ Absolutely. I must go," she said. 

“ Then I must go, too," he groaned. But Brenda 
put a firm veto on this proposal. 

“ It is wholly unnecessary," she said. “ With my 
maid and James I shall not be afraid, even if these men 


THE EASY WAY. 


45 


are all that Willett says they are. There will be the 
coachman and the groom besides.^^ 

Her father came up to her and touched the diamond 
ornament which she wore at her throat. 

I would not put unnecessary temptation in the way 
of the weak/* he said, with an attempt at levity. 
“ Some of these fellows are said to be very expert.** 
Brenda gave the pin to her father, and also removed 
a ring of more than ordinary value, which she knotted 
up in a handkerchief and thrust into the bosom of 
her dress. Her maid entered at this moment with such 
things as were necessary to prepare Brenda for the 
ride. 

After his daughter’s departure Mr. Maclane paced 
the floor of the library for a long hour in restless anx- 
iety. Then he received a telephone message from 
Brenda, informing him that she had learned that Mr. 
Alden was still detained at the police station, which 
was an injustice not to be overlooked by his friends. 
The financier then understood why he had been left at 
home. As a result of Brenda’s presentation of the 
case Mr. Maclane called upon his lawyer, who was a 
near neighbor, and the two men rode down to the sta- 
tion house in a cab, stopping at a club on the way to 
cash a check. 

Upon giving their names to the sergeant at the desk 
in the station they were ushered into the captain’s 


46 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


room, where, to their surprise, they found both the 
officer and his prisoner. Neale was sitting by a desk 
in the corner. He had the cramped look and the dull 
eye of a man who has neither moved nor spoken in a 
long time. Half a cigar with a ragged end was be- 
tween his lips, and it seemed to have been driven in 
with a hammer. Any one who had known Neale for 
ten years would have said that this was the same cigar 
he had always been smoking. There was a tradition 
that he had never been seen to light a fresh one. 

Alden was standing by a barred window looking 
out into a narrov/, dark court, with a dead wall on the 
opposite side. There was nothing to attract a rational 
man’s eye, but Alden continued to stare even after 
Maclane and the lawyer entered the room. He turned, 
however, when Captain Neale greeted the two men by 
name. At the sight of Alden’s face Maclane, who was 
advancing toward him, stopped short. It is not the 
barrier between them which keeps the spectator in 
the menagerie from intruding upon the privacy of the 
caged tiger ; it is the look in the creature’s eye. 

Good evening, sir,” said Alden quietly. ** I am 
surprised to see you here.” 

Maclane started at the sound of the voice ; it was so 
different from what he expected. 

‘‘ My daughter told me there was some sort of 
trouble,” he began. 


THE EASY WAY. 


47 


“ It was very kind of her/’ said Alden. 

“ You probably heard that Mr. Alden was under 
arrest/’ said the captain. “ That isn’t so. He’s held 
as a witness. There’s no charge against him. He and 
I had a little disagreement about what was the right 
thing for him to do. You see, he doesn’t understand 
my position. I’m held accountable in these cases. 
But I don’t want to make no trouble for no man,” he 
went on, with that profusion of negatives which was 
often an ornament of his language in moments of ear- 
nestness, and if I could see a decent way of letting 
him go without getting myself into trouble, why, I’d 
be glad to oblige him and his friends.” 

Permit me to consider the legal aspect of the case,” 
said the lawyer, sitting upon a corner of the table that 
was in the middle of the room and facing Neale, while 
the others were behind him. 

There was silence for half a minute, and then the 
lawyer got upon his feet. 

** It seems to be perfectly simple,” he said at last. 

If you say so, that settles it,” replied Neale, rising 
and walking toward the door. “ Sorry to have 
troubled you, Mr. Alden. Good night.” 

And he bowed as the three men walked out. Mac- 
lane weak and trembling with excitement, Alden per- 
fectly mechanical. As they passed the sergeant’s desk 
the lawyer discovered that he had left his cane in the 


48 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


captain's room, and he returned. He was absent about 
five minutes, at the expiration of which time he joined 
Maclane upon the sidewalk. Alden was not there. 

‘‘ He has gone to the hospital in our cab," said Mac- 
lane. “ The man is in a trance. He scarcely spoke 
ten words. What detained you ? " 

** The captain was showing me a present that he had 
just bought for his little boy," replied the lawyer. 

It’s one of those iron banks. ‘ That’ll make him 
thrifty, like his father,’ said the captain. So, to en- 
courage the child," sinking his voice to a whisper, “ I 
put $300 into the bank while the captain was looking 
out of the window. Perhaps you didn’t notice that I 
counted some of my fingers as I sat on the corner of 
the table; not so many as I had expected, but Neale 
was really glad to get rid of him. It’s the easy way all 
around." 

“ Only $300 ! " exclaimed Maclane. ** Well, that 
was easy." 


THE PATIENT AT ST. WINIFRED’S. 


49 


CHAPTER V. 

THE PATIENT AT ST. WINIFRED^S. 

On the way to St. Winifred^s with Brenda, Mr. 
Barnes and Mr. Haggerty exerted themselves to be 
entertaining. By way of opening a conversation and 
showing that personal interest which a lady always 
appreciates Mr. Barnes mentioned the singular cir- 
cumstance that he happened to know a man who had 
seen Miss Maclane that afternoon. He wondered 
whether Miss Maclane could guess where it was that 
this man had seen her. Upon Brenda's acknowledg- 
ing that she was unable to solve this riddle Mr. Barnes 
kindly gave her a clew. 

“If you could remember where you were at pre- 
cisely ten minutes to 3," he said, “why, that would 
settle it.” 

Brenda smiled at the great astuteness of Mr. Barnes, 
but she declined to be led into a review of her move- 
ments that afternoon. Mr. Haggerty then struck into 
the conversation with the remark that it was curious 
how people could forget where they had been, and he 


50 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


instanced the case of a young lady who had lost an 
excellent alibi in a criminal affair through the error 
of not taking the police into her confidence at an early 
stage of the proceedings, while the facts were fresh 
in her mind. Brenda suggested that perhaps the lady 
did not fully trust the police, whereupon Mr. Barnes 
asserted warmly that that was the greatest mistake 
possible to a human being. 

‘‘ Always trust the police/’ he said. “ Guilty or 
innocent, it’s the only thing to do.” 

At the hospital it became immediately evident that 
Barnes and Haggerty had encountered a mysterious 
and formidable obstacle. They were about to accom- 
pany Brenda into the reception room, and she had 
begun to fear that they might never leave her while she 
remained in the building, but for some inscrutable 
reason they vanished, and Brenda’s last glimpse 
showed them obviously crestfallen. 

She had been somewhat lightened in spirits by the 
absurd comedy played by these dull witted men. It 
had ended, however, and the real significance of the 
drama again asserted itself. 

The reception room of St. Winifred’s is lofty and 
bare, and there was a chill air in it even on that sultry 
June evening. Brenda observed that the place in- 
spired her two companions with a vague terror. The 
maid was seized with a visible trembling, and the stal- 


THE PATIENT AT ST. WINIFRED’S. 


51 


wart James shifted his heavily shod feet upon the floor, 
arousing singularly loud echoes that seemed to affect 
him unpleasantly. 

The attendant who had shown them in returned 
after some minutes’ absence with two men, one of 
whom Brenda had seen in the hall as they entered. 
He was the typical hospital physician of the popular 
conception. Brenda noted only that he wore spectacles 
and that his upper lip was very thin and rigid. In 
his companion Brenda was rejoiced to recognize a 
young doctor of her acquaintance, Sumner Kendall. 
She advanced hastily, with extended hand. 

Dr. Kendall,” she exclaimed, '' I had no idea you 
were connected with St. Winifred’s. I have come to 
see Miss Miller. Is she conscious? What has she 
said?” 

The physician seemed to be laboring under con- 
siderable embarrassment. He took Brenda’s hand 
with a quick, nervous movement, and he clasped it 
harder than the forms of polite society permit. But 
he did not meet the young lady’s eye. 

** Our patient is conscious,” he said, and if it were 
not for that piece of steel in the wound, she would 
stand a good chance of recovery. But we are unable 
to locate it, though we know that it must have been 
carried deep.” 

“ It lies near her heart,” said Brenda, with a shudder. 


53 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ It may cut an artery or the heart itself, at any 
moment.” 

“ Well, not quite as bad as that,” answered the 
doctor, “ but it is a source of great peril to her, and 
of considerable perplexity to us.” 

Does she know of this danger? ” 

Not fully,” he replied. “ She was told that she 
might die, when she was questioned ; but I have since 
encouraged her in every way. Miss Maclane, I am 
going to save her, if there is any possible way.” 

Questioned ? ” said Brenda. “ What has she told 
you ? ” 

To our great surprise,” said he, “ we find that she 
does not know who inflicted the wound. It may be 
only a lapse of memory due to shock, but I myself 
fear that she will never be able to answer the question.” 

“ She does not know ? ” echoed Brenda. 

You must understand,” said Kendall, “ that the 
assailant stood behind her. He, whoever it may have 
been, is supposed to have entered the room while Miss 
Miller was out on the balcony. I have had the place 
accurately described to me. In the corner of the room 
near the eastern window there is quite a large closet. 
Perhaps you noticed it.” 

Brenda inclined her head. 

“ The assassin may have hidden himself there,” 
Kendall continued. ‘‘ Miss Miller remembers step- 


THE PATIENT AT ST. WINIFRED’S. 


53 


ping into the room through that eastern window, and 
she knows nothing of what happened between that 
moment and the time of her awakening here.’’ 

She will live,” said Brenda. She will remember 
some day.” 

“ She can never remember what she did not ob- 
serve,” replied Kendall. “ It may be that she neither 
saw nor heard the assassin. As to the wound, I hardly 
know what to say. The knife entered between the first 
and second ribs and passed downward very close to 
the body wall. Ordinarily it would be almost impos- 
sible to inflict such a wound. The assassin must have 
been singularly ignorant of anatomy to strike down- 
ward at such a spot, for the chances were a thousand 
to one that the bony structure would protect the vital 
parts. The knife should have cleared the first rib and 
hit fairly against the second. But it happens that Miss 
Miller received an injury on this precise spot years 
ago, as a result of which the first rib is somewhat de- 
pressed. Thus the murderer was favored by an extraor- 
dinary chance. His idea was, first, to escape being 
seen by her, and, second, to strike at the front of the 
body while standing behind in order to avoid the blood 
that must follow the blow. Having struck, he un- 
doubtedly supposed that he had reached the heart, 
and only a miracle prevented. Our ambulance sur- 
geon believed that the wall of the heart was punc- 


54 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


tured and that a clot of blood was stopping the wound, 
as happens once in a million times. That is not the 
case. Not only did the knife miss the heart, but it 
missed the arteries in a way that only divine Provi- 
dence can account for. So the first effusion of blood 
was not followed by the fatal drain that might have 
been expected. Do I make myself clear? ” 

“ I understand enough,’’ said Brenda. ‘‘ I know that 
she may recover, and I thank God with all my soul.” 

There was a pause, during which Kendall’s em- 
barrassment, that had been less noticeable while his 
mind was bent upon a description of Elsie’s injury, 
once more asserted itself. Brenda observed that his 
face was flushed and his forehead moist, and she was 
puzzled. 

‘‘ Have you told her that I am here ? ” she asked. 
“ Does she wish to see me? ” 

‘‘ We have not mentioned it,” he replied, “ but you 
need have no hesitation. We have given her a very 
nice room,” he hurried on. “ You’ll find that every- 
thing in the world is being done for her. Shall we go 
in?” 

The other physician then came forward, and Brenda 
gave him her hand, though Kendall, in the extremity 
of his emibarrassment, forgot to utter the form of pres- 
entation. 

A straight and long corridor, the longest, as it 


THE PATIENT AT ST. WINIFRED’S. 


55 


seemed to Brenda, that mortal architect had ever de- 
signed, ran rearward to the part of the building in 
which Miss Miller had been sequestered. Kendall led 
the way, and his colleague walked behind. For the 
third time that day Brenda experienced the sensation 
of surrendering her volition. The hospital became a 
prison; she was being marched to some deep cell be- 
yond the reach of rescue or the light of day. Then, in 
a moment, she saw Dr. Kendall open a door and step 
back that she might pass before him. 

Brenda’s first glance happened to fall directly upon 
the face of the patient, and she cannot truly be said to 
have seen anything else in the room. The bed was 
only an indistinct splash of white. The bare walls, the 
plainly curtained window, the nurse in profile, motion- 
less as a figure on tapestry, entered into the feeling, 
but not into the view of the scene. She beheld only 
that sweet and sad little face, so pretty, so maidenly 
and tender. And the real essence of this despicable 
crime, the inconceivable inhumanity of it, seemed to 
speak straight to Brenda’s heart in that language of 
nature which is without words. 

Elsie’s brown eyes opened wide. They had been half 
closed, and she had been looking at heaven knows 
what; nothing in that room surely, nothing that ever 
had been anywhere perhaps. They turned to Brenda 
with utter surprise. 


EQUAL PARTNERS, 


56 

** Miss Maclane ! '' she cried in a weak voice, but 
distinct as the tone of a little silver bell. “ You have 
come to see me ! How kind of you ! ” Then suddenly, 
“ Why did you do it ? ” 

Brenda sank upon her knees beside the bed and took 
Elsie's hand. 

It was an impulse — a mere impulse," she said ; 
“ but I am very glad I came. I am so sorry for you. I 
am a good nurse. I have been taught. Will you let 
me stay here with you until you are well ? " 

Two tears gathered in Elsie's eyes and glided slowly 
down her cheeks. Her lip quivered like a child's. 

“ I shan't get well," she said. “ I don't want to.” 

And then the tears came very fast. 


AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE. 


57 


CHAPTER VI. 

AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE. 

When one is in the valley of the shadow, age and 
experience may furnish many reasons for desiring to 
go farther in preference to returning. As a rule, 
however, these reasons are swallowed up in the instinct 
of living and in the interest one takes in one^s own 
struggle with the dark angel. A physician will hear 
many people say that they do not wish to recover, but 
most of them will wait until after the danger is over 
before giving utterance to words which the supernal 
powers may take too seriously. 

Dr. Kendall was not in the least prepared to hear 
such an expression from this particular patient. He 
would have said that she was one who enjoyed life, 
every minute of it. Certainly she was as full of 
natural vitality as a young fawn in the woods. Plainly 
Brenda was at least as much surprised as Kendall, 
and the physician awaited her response with critical 
interest. If she should ask an explanation or offer an 
argument, it would show that she had not the instinct 


58 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


of the nurse. It was in the nature of an examination, 
and Brenda passed it with great credit. 

If you will tell me I may stay,’' she said, '' I will 
do something that will make you feel much better.” 

“ You know that I w^ant you to stay,” said Elsie. 
“ It was very, very good of you to come, and I thank 
you truly.” 

Such being the case,” replied Brenda, I am going 
to fix your hair. One moment, while I make myself 
ready. And now,” she added, “ don’t move ; not a 
muscle. See, I can reach it without the slightest 
trouble.” 

And with cool and steady hands she arranged the 
brown masses in which there lurked a strange glow 
like red gold in the sun. It was cleverly done. Elsie 
felt the caressing hands, but they were so deft that not 
a tremor reached the wound. Dr. Kendall, observing 
closely, nodded his head as one who considers a ques- 
tion satisfactorily settled. 

Such beautiful hair ! ” said Brenda. '' You must 
be very vain of it.” 

But Elsie averred that she did not care for dark hair ; 
it was so common. She would much rather have 
Brenda’s. 

“ The entente cordiale is now fully established,” said 
Kendall. “ Miss Maclane, the patient is in your hands. 
I shall expect her to be playing golf in about a week. 


AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE. 


59 


It won’t be necessary for you to assist me any further. 
Dr. Johnson,” he continued, addressing his colleague. 
** I will join you in my room.” 

Dr. Johnson bowed and withdrew. Dr. Kendall 
took a seat by the bed, and without appearing to do 
anything particularly important he determined with 
great thoroughness the condition of his patient. Not 
all that he observed would be comprehensible by a 
layman. The most conspicuous feature in the case 
was the improvement of Elsie’s spirits. She spoke 
cheerfully to Brenda and seemed to have acquired in 
so short a time a certain dependence upon her. Then, 
almost as she was speaking, her eyes closed, her hands 
Upon the white coverlet relaxed, and she fell asleep. 

Kendall and Brenda watched her in silence for a 
moment while the professional nurse, who had re- 
mained in attendance, adjusted the shades upon the 
electric lights. 

“ While she sleeps,” whispered Brenda, ‘‘ I would 
like to telephone to my father. Dr. Johnson told me 
that Mr. Alden is probably still held at the station. 
He must be or he would be here. My father must try 
to secure his release. By the way, of course Miss 
Miller asked for him?” 

“For Mr. Alden? Yes,” replied Kendall. 

“ What did you tell her? ” 

“We said that he had sent all sorts of kind mes- 


6o 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


sages and that he received constant reports from us, 
but that she must not ask to see him before to- 
morrow.” 

Did she plead to see him at once ? ” asked Brenda. 

Kendall hesitated for a moment while they were 
passing silently out of the room. 

‘‘ Miss Miller is a very obedient patient,” he said. 

No one could give less trouble.” 

“ Well? ” rejoined Brenda. ^‘Please proceed.” 

“ I don’t quite understand.” 

** You have something more to say.” 

“ It occurred to me,” said Kendall slowly, “ that she 
exhibited less anxiety to see Mr. Alden than I should 
have expected.” 

This statement seemed to furnish Brenda with 
abundant food for thought. She said nothing as they 
traversed the long corridor, and Kendall also was 
silent. After Brenda had sent the message to her 
father she conferred with Kendall in regard to her 
remaining in the hospital as Elsie’s nurse and then 
dispatched her maid under James’s escort for such 
things as she would need. 

The departure of the servants left Brenda and Ken- 
dall alone in the reception room. 

“ I wish you would tell me more about Miss Miller.” 
said she. “ I cannot understand why she should not 
have wished to see Mr. Alden.” 


AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE. 


6i 


“ I did not say that/^ responded Kendall. “ It was 
her manner that struck me as peculiar.’’ 

She seems as unaffected and impulsive as a child,” 
said Brenda. “ I can imagine her asking for Mr. 
Alden as naturally as if he had been a drink of water.” 

That is precisely what she did not do,” said the 
doctor. ” Let me tell you just what happened. When 
she was brought to the hospital, she was unconscious. 
We took her to the emergency room and then to that 
where she is now. While I was making my first ex- 
amination of the wound she began to revive, and I 
believe that she regained the full command cf her 
faculties within a few minutes. It is not always pos- 
sible to say just when a patient’s mind becomes effect- 
ually clear, but I am perfectly sure that Miss Miller’s 
was wide awake some little time before she chose to 
let that fact appear. 

“ You must remember that we were then expecting 
the worst at any moment. Considering the nature of 
the case, it was important to question her immediately. 
I asked her who had inflicted the injury, and I know 
that she heard and understood me as well as you do 
now, but she made no sign. After her first view of the 
place, which she must have recognized as a room in a 
hospital, she closed her eyes, and I think it must have 
been a matter of five minutes before she opened them.” 


62 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ Thinking/’ said Brenda, “ thinking, thinking. 
Poor child!” 

“ Though she is obviously abnormally sensitive to 
pain,” Kendall continued, she bore what had to be 
done with the fortitude of a Christian martyr. I made 
up my mind after awhile that a miracle had protected 
her and that she had a chance to survive; therefore I 
ceased to ask questions, deciding to let her take her 
own time. When she spoke, it was not in reply to me, 
and she seemed to address no one. ‘ I am going to 
die,’ she said, and then she began to cry very softly, 
as you saw her a few minutes ago. I replied that I did 
not think so, but she shook her head, murmuring 
something about the grief of her mother, who could 
not come in time to see her. I asked for her mother’s 
address and was informed by the police sergeant who 
had just been admitted to the room, coming under 
orders from Captain Neale, that Mrs. Simmons, the 
landlady, had telegraphed to Mrs. Miller. 

“ The sergeant then came lumbering up to the side 
of the bed armed with a notebook and a pencil. With- 
out waiting for him to put a single question Miss 
Miller told her story of the crime as I told it to you. 
She told him that after putting the money which Mr. 
Alden had sent to her in a box on th^ table, she went 
out on the veranda. She could not remember whether 


AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE. 63 

she closed the lid of the box which has a spring lock; 
it was found open afterwards.'’ 

I saw it," said Brenda. “ It had not been broken." 

She was only a little while on the veranda," con- 
tinued Kendall, “ perhaps not more than two minutes, 
when she reentered the room by the eastern window. 
She neither saw nor heard any one. Beyond a con- 
fused memory of a sharp and terrible pang — sudden, 
unexpected and probably meaningless, because the 
mind is darkened before it can comprehend — she can 
recall nothing. There was very little for the sergeant 
to put down in his notebook." 

Did he believe her ? " asked Brenda. 

‘‘Yes; I think the sergeant did," replied Kendall, 
with a slight emphasis on the noun. “ At least the 
only indication of doubt he gave me was to ask me in 
the corridor afterward whether the wound could have 
been self inflicted. I told him to dismiss the idea, and 
he seemed to have no difficulty in doing so. It is not, 
at the first glance, a physical impossibility, but prac- 
tically it is precisely that." 

“ Suppose she should say that she did it,’’ said 
Brenda. 

“ With apologies to Miss Miller," responded Ken- 
dall, “ I must tell you that that would not affect my 
opinion in the least. If she has any desire to shield 
the guilty, she cannot do it in that way." 


64 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Brendans keen gray eyes searched the physician’s 
face. 

“ Do you believe that ? ” she demanded. 

“ Frankly,” said Kendall, “ my opinion is that Miss 
Miller knows perfectly well who did this deed.” 

“ And her motive for concealment ? ” 

I leave that to her own heart,” was the reply. 
** Yet it would seem that there could be but one.” 

“ A motive of the heart,” said Brenda. “Do you 
realize that this amounts to an accusation ? ” 

“ Then let us not speak of it any more,” said Ken- 
dall. “ Let us get back to Mr. Alden.” 

“ We have already done so,” she said ; but the doctor 
would not be drawn into such an admission. 

“ After the police officer had gone,” he resumed, 
“ Miss Miller asked me whether a note addressed to 
her had been found in her room. I answered yes, and 
then she inquired whether Mr. Alden had been in- 
formed of her misfortune. Fearing to excite her, I 
substituted for the truth the fiction that I just outlined 
to you, and my poor little patient merely sighed. She 
did not ask when she could see Mr. Alden nor mention 
his name again in any connection.” 

“ From which you infer ” 

“ Nothing whatever,” insisted Kendall. 

“You do not trust me,” said Brenda, not without 
bitterness. “You believe Mr. Alden guilty of this 


AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE. 


65 


frightful crime, and you dare not say so in my pres- 
ence for fear that I may not be discreet and you may 
be put into an unpleasant position.” 

“ I could scarcely be put into a position more un- 
pleasant than this one,” said Kendall earnestly. “I 
want to tell you the exact truth about — about every- 
thing that I know or imagine, and it is deadly hard 
to do it when you look at me as if I were an enemy. 
This is as near as I can come to an accurate expres- 
sion; Miss Miller’s manner convinces me that she is 
shielding the assassin, and there is no known reason 
why she should shield any one else than Mr. Alden.” 

“ But why not take the perfectly easy alternative 
that she is telling the truth ? ” 

I will,” said Kendall, “ if you wish me to.” 

“ I am very serious,” said Brenda. This is a 
promise you are making.” 

It is,” replied Kendall, his face flushed and his 
voice not quite steady. It is my word of honor given 
to you, and so twice sacred as the word of a friend,” 
he added. You were good enough to say that we 
were friends two years ago.” 

“ I have better cause to say it now,” she replied. 
“ Let me hasten to prove my sincerity in the usual way, 
by burdening you with a confidence. You must be 
wondering at me.” 

Why?” 


66 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ Because I am here.” 

It is a fine thing,” said Kendall earnestly. ** So 
much I know.” 

“ I will tell you more,” rejoined Brenda, *^and it will 
make you think better of Mr. Alden. This tragedy 
of to-day is a revelation to me, but not of the kind that 
you suppose. Mr. Alden had not concealed from me 
that his heart had been won away, but I did not under- 
stand. He told me of Miss Miller^s existence two 
months ago, but I would not hear all he wished to say. 
He intimated that he had begun to regard her with 
feelings that made his engagement to me dishonor- 
able. I viewed him with pity,” and Brenda laughed 
very softly and without mirth. “ I was so incredibly 
ignorant of everything outside my own sphere that I 
could not imagine the existence of such a woman as 
lies now in that room out there. 

Clarence said she was an actress, and he looked 
at me as a man upon the defensive. I can see him now. 
I pictured a siren, a creature grotesquely unworthy, 
appealing to his wild and reckless nature with thin 
artifices that would be clear as glass to him when 
he should view them with a dispassionate eye. Truly, 
I was only sorry for him, ashamed of him a little, yet 
very anxious to help him. It seemed to me that break- 
ing our engagement would be the very worse thing 
that could happen to him, and so I refused to consider 


AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE. 


67 


the woman at all. One meets men in society, Dr. 
Kendall, whose well known ways of life have an un- 
fortunate tendency to pervert women’s ideas in such 
matters. We admit the existence of certain persons 
whom we see in the park with elegant equipages, but 
we cannot consider them as rivals.” 

“ But surely he spoke of her with respect,” said 
Kendall. 

“ Absolute,” replied Brenda, but I thought him 
the more a fool. He said one evening, I remember — 
and it was only a very short time ago — that Miss Miller 
cared nothing for him and never would. I was merely 
convinced by his sincerity that the woman was play- 
ing a deep game, and I swore by such gods as I have 
that I would save him from her. And so it went on 
until last evening, when he sent me a note which made 
it impossible that our engagement should continue. It 
was only a frank, honest statement that his heart had 
passed utterly out of his control. I can see now that 
he could have done no better, but I did not take the 
right view at the moment. Perhaps it was because I 
had heard that day for the first time that Mr. Alden’s 
engagement with me was of the highest importance in 
his business affairs. If he had allowed it to continue 
for that reason — ^but he had not. It was really all my 
doing. 

However, to continue, I went to his office to-day 


68 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


because I was impatient and I told him that the en- 
gagement was at an end. That was in ten words. 
And the loss of me, Dr. Kendall, affected him so little, 
he was obviously so wrapped in an impenetrable hap- 
piness that I lost my temper for the first time in a good 
many years and cut short the interview. Oh, we were 
perfectly courteous to each other, and when we parted 
— most un romantically, with an elevator man rattling 
the catch of the door to make me hurry — we shook 
hands upon a vow of friendship. But I was in a 
shameful rage as I left the building. 

“ I went up town as far as the shopping district 
and wandered aimlessly in the stores. Then I got 
upon a street car, preferring it to the loneliness of a 
cab. And so it happened that a newsboy thrust the 
story of this crime into my face. The paper was wet 
from the press — printed and upon the street within 
half an hour after the discovery of the crime. A re- 
porter must have been right upon the scene by accident 
and have rushed to his office immediately. 

“ Let me confess my own folly. In the very first 
instant I feared that Mr. Alden might have struck the 
blow. It was sheer madness. I was overwrought by 
the excitement of the afternoon, and, remember, I then 
pictured Miss Miller as a desperate and scheming 
woman, one whose real nature was likely to be revealed 
to Mr. Alden in an instant by an unguarded word. 


AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE. 


69 


What mad scene might follow, who could say? There 
might have been some sort of struggle. She might 
have turned the knife against herself, meaning to strike 
him. Impatience smothered me. I must know at once, 
and, besides, I had a deadly longing to see her — to see 
the woman who had wrecked a life that was dear to 
me and had lost her own in doing it. 

** My first awakening was in her room. There was 
something of herself in it. Afterward I came here 
and heard the old man in the office say ‘ the child.’ 
And then I saw her, with indescribable surprise, even 
after such preparation as I had had. Her rival ? I am 
not so vain. Why did I not see her before? And the 
idea that Clarence Alden could have lifted his hand 
against a creature so pathetically beautiful that she 
must appeal irresistibly to a man so strong, is utterly 
monstrous. You can’t believe it.” 

You are quite right,” said Kendall. I don’t be- 
lieve it.” 


70 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER VIL 

THE PROSECUTION IS HEARD. 

Brenda returned to Elsie’s room after arranging 
witK Kendall to be notified at once if her father should 
secure Alden’s release and he should come to the hos- 
pital. As she passed out of the reception room she 
encountered Dr. Johnson, who was in the act of en- 
tering. He took a seat upon a corner of the table and 
met with some evidences of embarrassment the look 
which Kendall turned upon him. 

Were you listening there?” demanded Kendall 
after half a minute’s silence. 

“ Well, I couldn’t help hearing a word or two,” the 
other admitted. You see, I was looking for you, and 
I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation.” 

This thing must stop, Mr. Elmendorf,” said Ken- 
dall. I’ve been dragged into it by the heels. I gave 
you my word in the dark before I knew what you were 
going to do.” 

I didn’t know myself what I was going to do,” re- 
plied the detective. “ I came up here with orders to 


THE PROSECUTION IS HEARD. 


71 


be present when Miss Maclane went into Miss Miller’s 
room.” 

“ I did not suppose that this deception would extend 
to Miss Maclane when I made my promise,” said Ken- 
dall. I understood that she had seen you ; that she 
knew who you were. And you are not disguised.” 

“ I have shaved off my mustache,” said the detective, 

and I look like the devil without it. But this whole 
matter of disguise is merely knowing what somebody 
else will notice. When you’re going to be recognized, 
send another man. Miss Maclane had too much on her 
mind at the Thirty-eighth street house. She couldn’t 
have told afterward whether I was white or black. 
And so, with the mustache gone and these goggles 
for my eyes, it was a sure thing.” 

“ Why was it necessary ? ” 

“ I reported to headquarters that Miss Maclane was 
coming down here,” replied Elmendorf, “ and the old 
man wanted to get a line on it.” 

On what?” 

“ Whether they’d seen each other before. The result 
was a little peculiar, as you’ll admit. Your patient 
recognized Miss Maclane at a glance, but Miss Mac- 
lane says she never saw Miss Miller before. What do 
you make of it? Of course Miss Maclane has told 

so many different stories ” 

It is perfectly natural,” said Kendall, checking 


72 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Elmendorf by word and gesture. “ Miss Maclane is 
prominent in society. Her picture has been printed 
in the newspapers a hundred times. With a natural 
motive for interest in her, Miss Miller has undoubt- 
edly familiarized herself with Miss Maclane’s appear- 
ance. She may even have seen her entering a church 
on the occasion of a society wedding — or in some 
similar way.” 

“ That's the easy answer,” replied Elmendorf, “ and 
I guess it's right. One thing is certain — if Miss Mac- 
lane struck that blow, Miss Miller didn't see her, and 
the poor girl's story is true.” 

“ If Miss Maclane struck the blow ! ” repeated Ken- 
dall, dazed. What earthly reason have you — 
Now, see here,” said Elmendorf, ‘‘ let's view this 
matter calmly. Nobody can be hurt by a straight, 
honest view of the facts, except the one that ought to 
be hurt, the cowardly, black hearted murderer who did 
this thing. Talk about calmness ! Wait a minute.” 

He walked back and forth two or three times be- 
tween the table and the corner of the room, finally 
facing Kendall squarely and continuing : 

“ I don't usually care a . Excuse me. I don't 

usually swear, either, and I won't do it now. I was 
going to say that these things don't affect me, as a 
rule; they're all in the way of business. But some- 


THE PROSECUTION IS HEARD. 


73 


how this takes hold of me. How could anybody harm 
that little girl ? ” 

And he took another turn across the room. 

Miss Miller exerts a strange influence,” said 
Kendall. I suppose we’re at least as hard hearted 
as the police, but I caught Dr. Carrington, the ambu- 
lance surgeon who went out on this case, walking up 
and down in his room and telling another of our young 
doctors what he would like to do to the man who is 
responsible for this. The room smelled of brimstone 
from the language that he used. And between our- 
selves, Mr. Elmendorf, the thing filled me with horror 
such as I haven’t felt in a good many years. It is 
the personality of the girl undoubtedly. There’s noth- 
ing unusual about the case.” 

“ Well, I would hardly say that,” replied Elmen- 
dorf. “There are a few things that I wouldn’t call 
exactly ordinary — Miss Maclane’s conduct, for in- 
stance.” 

“ She explained that perfectly to me,” replied Ken- 
dall. 

“Yes,” said Elmendorf. “ I happened to hear the 
explanation. And now let me tell you something. It 
is a moral certainty that Miss Maclane went to that 
house before she says she did ; that she was there very 
close to the moment of the crime, not to put it any 
stronger.” 


74 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ What do you mean ? demanded Kendall. 

“ You have heard of the mysterious woman in the 
case? ” 

“ Yes. She was seen by Dr. Blair leaving the house. 
But there’s always something of that sort in every 
affair of the kind. It will be explained.” 

I wish Miss Maclane would explain it,” said 
Elmendorf, for she was the woman. Dr. Blair 
knows it beyond the shadow of doubt.” 

If he knows it,” returned Kendall, “ why hasn’t he 
said so? ” 

‘‘Would you? Put yourself in his place. Would 
you throw that rope around a woman’s neck before get- 
ting a little more light on the matter? As a man of 
the world and a doctor who’s learned in his business 
the value of keeping his mouth shut, would you do it? 
No. And Dr. Blair feels just the same way. He 
wasn’t born yesterday. When the time comes, he can 
give his evidence.” 

Kendall laid his hand upon his hair, perhaps to 
satisfy himself that it was not beginning to stand on 
end. 

“Do you believe that he will testify against her?” 
he demanded. “ Elmendorf, this is deadly serious.” 

“ Well, I should think it was,” said the detective, 
“and the longer she keeps quiet about it the more 
serious it gets.” 


THE PROSECUTION IS HEARD. 


75 


It was Kendairs turn to walk the floor, and he 
did it. 

“ There are a thousand chances to one, “ continued 
Elmendorf, ‘‘that if the story she tells you is true 
she can’t prove it. Suppose she was in a store. Who’s 
going to remember her or the time of day? Take her 
motive, take her admissions to you if they were made 
in court, combine them with Blair’s evidence, and what 
do you suppose the result would be ? ” 

“ You cannot have seen her with Miss Miller,” said 
Kendall, “ and still suspect her of this crime.” 

Elmendorf hesitated, as if he could hardly bring 
himself to destroy the last refuge. 

“ There’s one way to look at that,” he said at last. 
“ Miss Maclane goes to that house wild with rage after 
her scene with Alden. She has the ‘ fixed idea ’ that’s 
more in crime than even you doctors think it is. She 
gets in without seeing anybody because of the defective 
catch of the lock. She walks into that room. Miss 
Miller is on the balcony. Right on the table, where 
the devil must have put it, is that knife, open perhaps, 
for the envelope that held that note was cut. Miss 
Maclane takes that knife, and on the instant Miss 
Miller comes in through the window, the other girl 
shrinking back toward the closet. She is behind Miss 
Miller. She doesn’t see her. You know how it would 
be with the girl entering from the balcony, the bright 


76 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


light behind her. My friend, it's all over in a second, 
and Brenda Maclane doesn’t know what she’s done 
until she comes to this hospital and sees in that bed 
a creature as different from the woman she supposed 
she had struck down as God could make.” 

Kendall’s forehead was dripping wet. 

But the money? ” he gasped. 

‘‘Who knows anything about the money?” de- 
manded Elmendorf. “ It may have lain out of sight 
until Neale and his men got there, and one of them 
may have lifted it. This is not for publication. Dr. 
Kendall. It’s between ourselves.” 

“ It’s a nightmare,” said Kendall. “ I don’t believe 
a word of it.” 

“If you don’t like the way I’ve put it, let me give 
you another view,” replied the detective. “ Miss Mac- 
lane goes to the house — heaven knows why, perhaps 
from curiosity. She goes up the steps and sees through 
the glass panel of the outer door Alden in the hall. 
With the door of Miss Miller’s room open this would 
be possible. I’ve tried it. Seeing Alden, Miss Mac- 
lane hurries away. She doesn’t know what Alden has 
just done, but she doesn’t want to meet him. Dr. 
Blair sees her, but does not see Alden, who comes out 
afterward. This would be natural, for of course Blair’s 
back was turned after he passed the house. Let me tell 
you that Miss Maclane, when she was questioned. 


THE PROSECUTION IS HEARD. 


77 


spoke of the chance that the mysterious woman had 
merely gone up the steps and then come right down 
again.” 

“ I'd rather take that view of it,” said Kendall. “ But 
even so, you must have a motive.” 

Motive ! ” echoed Elmendorf. “ What did Miss 
Maclane tell you? Didn’t she say that Alden told her 
that Miss Miller gave him no encouragement? Sup- 
pose he went up there after writing his letter, which 
cheerfully assumed that everything was all right, and 
suppose she told him, once and for all, that she wouldn’t 
have any thing to do with him. For her sake he had 
tempted financial ruin by breaking it off with Brenda 
Maclane, and now he finds that he’s got nothing to pay 
for it. I’ll tell you Alden isn’t the man to take that 
calmly.” 

“ If that’s the fact of the case,” said Kendall, '' how 
do you explain her silence ? ” 

My dear sir,” replied Elmendorf, '' you’ve got 
me. I can’t. But who can explain a woman anyhow ? 
You believe that Miss Miller is telling the truth, don’t 
you?” 

Did you hear me say so? ” 

‘‘To Miss Maclane? No. The first thing I heard 
you say to her was that it was a fine thing that she had 
done.” 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


7S 


I did say that I believed Miss Miller. That is 
my present attitude.^’ 

‘‘ In some respects,” said Elmendorf, “ it is the worst 
you could take — for Miss Maclane. By the way, you 
will permit her to remain with the patient ? ” 

“ Why not ? ” demanded Kendall sternly. 

Elmendorf replied with haste that he saw no ob- 
jection whatever. There was a brief silence, and then 
Kendall left the room, saying that he would return 
presently. As he passed the head of the steps leading 
up from the main entrance of the building the doors 
below were suddenly flung open, and a man appeared. 
He seemed to Kendall to come up the steps without 
touching them. In an instant his hand was on Ken- 
dall’s arm, and the doctor carried three bruises for a 
week as the result of it. 

Though the two men had a club acquaintance, Alden 
did not show the slightest trace of recognition. 

Miss Miller?” he said, his voice perfectly steady, 
ghastly steady, as Kendall afterward described it. Is 
she alive ? ” 

‘‘ She is,” replied the doctor, and there is no im- 
mediate danger.” 

'' I thank you,” said Alden. “ I was pretty nearly 
gone. I beg your pardon, how do you do. Dr. Ken- 
dall?” And he extended his hand. 

'' I understand perfectly,” said the doctor. Miss 


THE PROSECUTION IS HEARD. 


79 


Miller is conscious, entirely rational and suffering far 
less pain than you would suppose.’^ 

‘‘ Who did this ? '' demanded Allen. “ She has told 
you?’’ 

“ She does not know.” 

“ She does not know ! ” echoed Alden, his head sink- 
ing upon his breast. 

** I am sorry to say that it will not be wise for you 
to see her to-night,” said Kendall. “ We must not 
subject her to excitement. Please wait here.” And 
he led the way to the reception room. I will go to 
Miss Miller’s room and bring you word.” 

Alden found himself in the presence of Elmendorf, 
whom he took to be one of the doctors connected with 
the establishment, which may indicate that there was 
more in the detective’s disguise than he had been will- 
ing to admit to Kendall. 

“ I called to inquire about Miss Miller,” said Alden 
after maintaining silence to what seemed the limit of 
his power. 

“You are Mr. Allen, I take it,” was the reply. 
“ Well, you want to cheer up. Miss Miller is doing 
fine.” 

“ Has she asked for me ? ” 

“Yes,” but it was not Elmendorf’s voice that re- 
plied. “ She has asked for you many times.” 

Alden turned to see Brenda at the door. He stared 


8o 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


at her as if she had been a figure raised up by some 
sudden conjuration. 

“ Brenda ! ’’ he said at last. “ I find you every- 
where.'’ 

Did not my father tell you I was here ? ” she 
asked, and he shook his head. 

“ I shall remain with Miss Miller until her mother 
comes,” said Brenda. '' Dr. Kendall has arranged it.” 

Alden seemed momentarily to be at a loss for words, 
but he did not struggle for them nor labor visibly with 
emotion. His manner still remained as it had been 
throughout — restrained, mechanical. 

'' You are true blue, Brenda,” he said steadily. You 
always were.” 

“ I am very glad to be here,” she interrupted, speak- 
ing so«ftly and leading him aside. She is an alto- 
gether lovable girl, and I am going to be a sister to 
her,” she added, smiling, “ instead of to you, as is 
customary under the circumstances. I will see that 
she is not harassed by questions and that she lacks 
nothing that can possibly be had. 

“ I cannot see her to-night,” said Alden. Can I 
send a message ? ” 

“ I will take it to her,” replied Brenda. ‘‘ And 
by the way, I saw some violets in her room. She likes 
them especially, does she not? I think Dr. Kendall 
would let me take in a few from you.” 


THE PROSECUTION IS HEARD. 


8l 


“ In five minutes I will have them/’ said Alden. 
“ You will wait here ? It is very kind of you.” 

He left the room hastily, and Brenda explained 
his errand. Kendall’s manner led her to think that 
she might have made an error in suggesting the vio- 
lets, but it was a very different matter that was upon 
the doctor’s mind. He was making an effort to ex- 
press himself when Elmendorf interrupted him. 

‘‘ Dr. Kendall is worried,” he said, “ because he has 
permitted me to play a trick upon you. To tell the 
truth, I don’t like it any better than he does, and here 
is where it ends. I am not a doctor. I am a detective 
sergeant from headquarters. You saw me at the 
Thirty-eighth street house this afternoon. My name 
is Elmendorf.” 

Brenda exhibited surprise, but no resentment, 
merely saying that the detective’s presence was 
doubtless necessary for reasons unknown to her. 

‘‘ I am as anxious as any one can be, ” she said, 
** to have justice done in this deplorable affair. Do 
you think you can find out who committed this 
crime, Mr. Elmendorf? Do you suspect any one?” 

“ I haven’t got any authority to find out anything 
or suspect anybody, ” replied Elmendorf, in a tone 
which indicated that this familiar situation was not 
agreeable in the present instance. ‘‘ I go where I 
am sent and then I make a report. What becomes 


82 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


of the information afterward is a matter with which 
the Sultan of Sulu has more to do than I have. But 
ril tell you what I think, he added earnestly. “ If 
this poor girl gets well, that will be the last you’ll 
hear about the case. If she dies, it will all have 
to come out. ” 

“ But you don’t' think she will die? ” cried Brenda, 
paling. 

** I hope not, ” replied Elmendorf, “ and of course 
my opinion in that matter is worth even less than it 
is in the other. But we mustn’t take her recovery 
for granted at' this stage of the game. Am I right. 
Dr. Kendall?” 

** There can be no certainty yet, ” replied the doc- 
tor gravely. 

‘‘ Her condition might change for the worse quite 
suddenly. Isn’t that so?” continued Elmendorf. 
‘‘ And if it did she might become unconscious and 
remain so to the end. That’s the fact and we must 
face it. This may be murder, and the safe way is 
tc get at the truth now while we can. ” 

“ I won’t have her questioned any more to- 
night,” said Kendall, with decision. ‘‘ I’ve blocked 
off a coroner already who was here for an antemor- 
tem statement, and I am prepared for the next 
comer. Miss Miller shall not be harried into her 
grave, and if any attempt of the kind is made I will 


THE PROSECUTION IS HEARD. 


83 


show a few points of law that will surprise some of 
our hit-and-miss officials in this town. A physi- 
cian’s authority beside his patient can be put into 
practical form if the individual understands the sub- 
ject. And I do. ” 

Your advice goes, with me, ” Elmendorf 
hastened to say ; “ but I don’t think the particular 
question I had in mind could do any harm. ” 

You may state it,” said Kendall. 

‘‘ It was about a picture that I saw in her room, ” 
replied the detective, “ a photograph of a painting, 
J should say. I’d like to know where it came from ; 
how she happened to get it. Ugly looking thing it 
is, and I couldn’t help wondering about it. ” 

“ You mean the picture of Tantalus, ” said 
Brenda. I saw it. Why do you attach any im- 
portance to it ? ” 

If I should tell you, you’d laugh at me, ” replied 
Elmendorf, ‘‘so I won’t do it just now. But if you 

should get a good chance to ask the question ” 

“ I have already done so, singularly enough, ” said 
Brenda. “ She was awake when I returned to the 
room, and we spoke of some things that she 
wished to have brought here. She asked for that 
picture. I must have shown my surprise, for she 
immediately began to praise the picture, saying how 
much she admired the facial expression of the tor- 


84 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


tured king, and she mentioned having bought it at 
an art store on Twenty-third street a few weeks 
ago. As a student of facial expression, having her 
dreams of tragic triumphs some day, the thing 
might naturally have appealed to her. 

“ I didn’t think about her being an actress, ” said 
Elmendorf. “ That explains it, no doubt. They like 
those extreme typical faces. I was foolish to im- 
agine that the picture could have anything to do 
with this case. ” 


MAKING TROUBLE. 


85 


CHAPTER VIII. 

MAKING TROUBLE. 

While Elmendorf was speaking Alden returned, 
bearing a bunch of violets wrapped in such paper as 
florists use. 

I was gone longer than I expected, ” he said. 
“ I did not know just where to find a florist here- 
about. The flowers are all covered up, you see. It 
is an evening that might wither a violet’ with one 
breath. ” 

He passed the bouquet somewhat awkwardly 
across the big table to Brenda, who in the act of 
receiving it was so startled by the sudden appear- 
ance of the ward detective, Barnes, upon the thresh- 
old that she let the flowers fall. 

With due allowance for its general lack of intel- 
ligence, it may be said that the countenance of 
Barnes was full of meaning. The man looked self 
assertive, confident and pleased. 

“ I beg your pardon, ” said he. ‘‘ Who is in 
charge here ? ” 


86 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ I am for the moment, replied Kendall. 

Barnes hesitated, looking sidewise at Alden. 
Then his glance shifted to the bouquet upon the 
table and rebounded in the direction of the doctor. 

“ rd like to have a word with you,” he said. 

“Speak up,” said Kendall. “What is it?” 

“ Those flowers are for the Miller girl, of 
course?” said Barnes. “Well, you’d better take a 
look at ’em before you send ’em in. Oh, they’re 
all right, I guess, but you can’t be too careful.” 

“What do you mean?” demanded Kendall. 

Barnes pointed a finger at Alden. 

“ That man put something into them,” he said. 
“ I saw him do it. I don’t know what it was, but 
there’s drugs that, if you smell of them, why, it’s your 
finish.” 

Kendall was too much surprised to speak. Alden 
took a hasty step toward Barnes and collided with 
Elmendorf, who courteously begged his pardon. 
Meanwhile Brenda picked up the bouquet from the 
table, and as they all turned toward her she opened 
the paper over the violets and pressed them against 
her lips. 

“ They are very fragrant,” she said. 

“ That’s all right,” returned Barnes doggedly, 
“ but he put something in there. What was it? ” 

“ This bit of paper, I suppose,” said Brenda, tak- 
ing it in her fingers. “Your message, Clarence? ” 


MAKING TROUBLE. 


87 


** I think somebody ought to read it,” said Barnes, 
looking at Elmendorf out of the corner of his eye. 

Alden thrust Elmendorf aside as if he had been 
a paper dummy and then checked himself. Barnes 
was already in the hall. 

I can have no quarrel with this creature,” said 
Alden. “As to my message, I appeal to Dr. Ken- 
dall.” 

“ This is more than absurd,” rejoined the doctor. 
“ Miss Maclane, whenever you are ready ” 

As Brenda stepped forward the bit of paper slipped 
out from among the flowers and fell to the floor. 
Elmendorf picked it up. 

“ I hope you won't misunderstand me,” he said. 
“ Perhaps I see farther ahead than you do. If I was 
in Mr. Alden’s place, Pd let somebody read this.” 

He gave the message to Brenda, who glanced at 
Alden as she took it. He raised his hand in a ges- 
ture of negation. 

“ Now, look here, all of you,” exclaimed Barnes. 
“ Here's this girl in there ” — and he pointed with his 
thumb in the supposed direction of Elsie's room — 
“ who’s hiding what she knows. I don't say it's in 
this man's interest, but it's in somebody's interest; 
that’s sure. She wouldn't be the first woman that’s 
had the nerve to get the knife and say nothing. I 
don’t accuse anybody, especially not this man, for 


88 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


I ain't got a thing against him. He’s all right so 
far as I know. But what I say is that the girl ought 
not to be getting messages on the quiet.” 

Alden’s face was white as paper, and his eyes 
were afire. It is probable that every bone in Barnes’s 
body ached with anticipation, but he had been 
kicked too often in the way of business to flee before 
the actual contact. 

** I’ve stood all of this that my system can ab- 
sorb,” said Kendall, with a seriousness that scarcely 
fitted with the peculiar phrase which had come into 
his mouth. “After this dime novel nonsense of 
poisoned bouquets I don’t care to have anything 
more from you. Get out ! ” 

“ You’re making a mistake,” said Barnes, and then 
backed out of the room, grinning like a monkey, as 
Kendall advanced toward the door. 

Brenda placed the note among the flowers and 
gave her free hand to Alden, bidding him good 
night. 

“ I shall not be far away,” he said, as the woman 
preceded Kendall out of the room. “ There’s a lodg- 
ing house next door. I shall get a place to sleep 
there. Sleep? Well, at least I shall be there. You 
will not fail to summon me if — if there should be 
any reason for it?” 

“You may depend upon me,” said Brenda from 



BRENDA PLACED THE NOTE AMONG THE FLOWERS. 

Page 88. 



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MAKING TROUBLE. 

the threshold, where she had paused a moment 
while he spoke. 

Kendall went with her to the mouth of the long 
corridor and then returned to the reception room. 

That man must be insane/^ he said to Elmen- 
dorf. “ What did he mean by coming here with 
such absurdities?” 

“ He didn't believe in them any more than you 
do,” replied the detective. He had no idea that 
there was anything wrong with the violets or with 
the note. He was simply obeying orders.” 

“ Orders ? ” echoed Kendall. ‘‘ Who could have 
ordered him to do such a thing?” 

“ I guess Mr. Alden knows,” responded Elmen- 
dorf. And, between ourselves, I think Mr. Alden 
should have permitted the note to be read right 
here. I hope Miss Miller won't destroy it.” 

Kendall looked at Alden as if to inquire whether 
such a thing was likely, but gleaned no answer. 
Alden's face had resumed its rigidity, and the ex- 
pression which it wore was intense, but difficult to 
read. 

“ However,” continued Elmendorf, “ if it hadn't 
been that, it would have been something else. 
You're going to see a good deal of this sort of thing 
in the next few days, Mr. Alden.” 

** A good deal of what?” said Alden. 


90 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ It is technically known as ‘ making trouble ’ for a 
man/’ replied the detective. “ I don’t know why I 
should ‘put you on,’ but I’m doing it just the same.” 

“ Do you mean to tell me,” demanded Alden, 
“that Captain Neale expects to extort an important 
secret from me by childish tricks of annoyance such 
as this?” 

“ Certainly not,” answered Elmendorf, “Joe Neale 
is no such donkey. Why, he’s worth a quarter of a 
million dollars, and it’s a wise man who can save 
as much as that in a few years out of a salary of 
twenty-five hundred. By simple arithmetic it would 
take a man just a century to do it if he lived mean- 
while on what the neighbors sent in, as they used 
to say in Massachusetts, where I was brought up. 
Joe Neale knows that when a man is worried he 
talks; he must talk to somebody. And the cap 
would just as soon get your secret out of John Doe 
as out of you — a little rather, in fact, because then 
you wouldn’t know that he had it. Now, I’ve said 
enough to cost me my job.” 

“ Nothing you say to me will ever cost you any- 
thing,” said Alden. “ I’m not a talking man. By 
the way, who are you ? ” 

“ Introduce me,” said Elmendorf to Kendall, and 
the doctor complied. 

“ I am pleased to meet you,” said Alden, offering 


MAKING TROUBLE. 


91 


his hand. ** If you find out anything important in 
this case, I want’ you to tell me first. I’ll make it 
worth your while.” 

“No, thank you,” said Elmendorf hastily. “As 
a rule I’m as corrupt as the devil — but not this 
time.” 

Meanwhile Brenda had delivered the posies to 
Elsie — whom pain had wakened from a little sleep 
— with the gentlest possible words and ways. She 
had not at all the manner of a nurse, but rather that 
of an exceedingly tactful and well bred young doc- 
tor. 

Elsie took the bouquet and very quietly cried over 
it for some minutes without discovering the note 
which it contained. She did not say anything; she 
did not ask a question about what Alden had said or 
done, whether he had gone away or was still wait- 
ing, or whether he had seemed much distressed by 
her misfortune. Brenda had merely said that he 
had called, and that he had sent the violets be- 
cause they were Elsie’s favorite flower. This 
seemed to satisfy the girl completely. 

Brenda had supposed that she would see the mes- 
sage at the first glance and indeed believed for some 
little time that she had done so, but did not wish 
to read it immediately. Finding this an error and 
fearing that the sudden discovery of it might startle 


92 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


her, Brenda told Elsie that there was a message 
and pointed out its place. 

Then she turned away as if unwilling to accept 
the chance of guessing from Elsie’s face what the 
note might contain. When she judged that the 
proper interval had elapsed, she approached the bed 
once more. 

Elsie’s eyes were shut. The tears were drying on 
her cheeks, that’ were as delicate as rose leaves, and 
her right hand, tightly closed, was against her 
breast. Thus she remained until she fell asleep. 


A FEW WORDS WITH MR. ROBINSON. 


93 


CHAPTER IX. 

A FEW WORDS WITH MR. ROBINSON. 

Detective Elmendorf was a man who considered 
himself to be the simple product of chance. He was 
born in Danbury, Conn., and at the age of nine years 
he was left an orphan and penniless. Immediately 
after this misfortune, as he did not like the people 
with whom he was expected to live, he walked out 
of town. There happened to be a high wind that 
day, and the boy walked with it, because tlie con- 
trary course would have been disagreeable. 

No one made any attempt to bring him back, and 
so he tramped for about a week, eating nothing one 
day and six good meals the next, according to the 
varying charity of the people along the road. Fi- 
nally an eccentric old doctor in a certain small town 
found the boy ill on his doorstep one morning, and 
that was a great piece of luck for young Elmendorf. 
He had a good home in the doctor’s house for eight 
years, without care or labor; enjoyed the advan- 
tages of the excellent schools of the village, and 


94 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


was nearly ready to enter college when his bene- 
factor died. 

The doctor left a good property, but no will. Rel- 
atives swooped down like a flock of birds. Elmen- 
dorf had not been adopted. He had no legal status, 
and one day he discovered that he had nothing at 
all except a trunkful of decent raiment and the sum 
of $3.60. The coincidence that this was the exact 
fare to New York decided Elmendorf’s course. He 
arrived in the metropolis without a penny, hunted 
up a boarding house near the station, carried his 
trunk there on his shoulder and then went out to 
look for work. 

He had many occupations in the next five years, 
but none to his liking. Finally he became a clerk in 
a small hotel which was a haunt of ward politicians. 
Yielding to the temptation thus thrown into his 
way, he developed into a lieutenant of the district 
leader, learning more tricks than he had the hardi^ 
hood to play and prospering the less because of his 
scruples. 

It became a delusion with him, however, that he 
was one of the most dishonest of created beings; 
that he would do anything for money, and that only 
his hard luck prevented him from selling his soul at 
a good figure. Once when his affairs were at a 
low ebb his patron suggested the police, and Elmen- 


A FEW WORDS WITH MR. ROBINSON. 


95 


dorf became a member of the force in the firm belief 
that a corrupt man like himself could make money 
therein. But he had a perverse way of being dis- 
satisfied with temptation, and he gained a reputa- 
tion for honesty which his best friends deplored. 
It was pure chance, a matter not worthy of men- 
tion, which secured his transfer to the staff of the 
detective bureau. He had no appetite for the work, 
yet he must have possessed a certain fitness for it 
Perhaps the advantage of early mental training, 
added to an unfailing memory and a perception of 
little things that was due to the German blood in 
him, helped to make a real detective of him. 

Yet there is no money in detecting alone and but 
small advancement, as Elmendorf well knew. 
What one needs is the skill to construct a good, 
strong “ pull,” coupled with the capacity to turn 
the incidents of the profession to one’s personal ad- 
vantage. In these important particulars Elmendorf 
was a dire failure. He secured no pull, and he was 
forced to live almost entirely upon his salary. In- 
deed his continuance on the staff was due largely 
to the favor in which he was held by certain men 
connected with the press. The feeling that if El- 
mendorf should be sent back to patrol duty some- 
body would get roasted ” for it long and hard in 


96 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


at least two of the big papers was the deciding fac- 
tor in his case on several occasions. 

He was useful, however, in affairs like that with 
which the present record has to do, where early 
rumor connected persons of prominence and wealth 
with criminal cases and it was desirable to have 
a prompt and honest report as a basis for subse- 
quent action — which was more often prompt than 
honest. 

In the matter of the murderous attack upon Elsie 
Miller, Elmendorf received orders, on the morning 
of the day following that upon which the crime was 
committed, to “look up” John Robinson. It ap- 
peared that Robinson had left the house on Thirty- 
eighth street immediately after Alden’s departure, 
which he had viewed with every indication of in- 
tense and painful excitement. 

No obstacle was put in the way of his leaving 
when he desired to go; but an unobstrusive young 
man of Captain Neale^s retinue walked upon the 
other side of the street. Robinson did not see this 
young man — which is sometimes a great misfortune 
for the person thus attended — but it happened, in 
this instance, that after a considerable amount of 
pedestrian exercise of a seemingly aimless sort the 
young man did not see Robinson, and this was un- 
doubtedly a serious misfortune for the “ shadow.” 


A FEW WORDS WITH MR. ROBINSON. 


97 


He was roundly sworn at by his superior, when, 
after a fruitless search, he was obliged to announce 
his failure to that individual. He did not do this, 
of course, until he had waited a long time in front 
of the house where Robinson lived. Had Robinson 
returned there the ** shadow would have given, in 
his subsequent report, a full statement covering 
every detail of Robinson’s movements and every 
minute of the time, and would cheerfully have 
sworn to it in court had later event’s made such a 
proceeding necessary. But, failing to “ pick up ” 
Robinson, there was no escape from confession. 

The landlady of the boarding house where Rob- 
inson lived said that he was somewhat irregular 
in his habits and that he did not’ always come home 
to dinner; but when at 2 o’clock in the morning it 
was reported that he had not' appeared Captain 
Neale began to be uneasy. As he expressed it, “If 
Robinson has skipped, there’ll be nothing doing.” 

Translated this meant that if a humble clerk of 
unknown antecedents had stained his soul with’ 
crime for $500 there remained only the profitless 
task of catching him and sending him to jail. 

Elmendorf had no idea that Robinson had 
“ skipped,” principally because there was no appar- 
ent reason for it. The clerk had delivered the note 
to Elsie and had then left the house, as the test'i- 


98 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


mony of the servant, a reliable woman long in Mrs. 
Simmons's employ, satisfactorily proved. That Rob- 
inson had immediately returned and committed the 
atrocious crime for a reward so small was, in El- 
mendorf’s opinion, a wild hallucination, though he 
had heard such a hypothesis stated. But that Rob- 
inson's extreme agitation when brought to the scene 
was due to a more intimate knowledge of the affair 
than he had disclosed was a much more reasonable 
proposition. 

As to the money in the note, Elmendorf was far 
from regarding it as the motive for the crime. He 
believed that the money had been there, for that 
was one of the few points upon which Elsie had made 
a positive declaration in her first response to ques- 
tions, as Elmendorf had been informed by Kendall 
in their earliest interview at the hospital. She had 
said that she had removed the money and had put 
it into the box upon the table. It had been stolen, 
but probably as a “blind," unless, indeed, some 
person connected with the police had comforted an 
itching palm with it. 

Upon receiving his orders in regard to Robinson 
the detective went down town to the building in 
which Alden's offices were situated. He took up an 
inconspicuous position near by and after half an 
hour of waiting had the pleasure of wishing Mr. 


A FEW WORKS WITH MR. ROBINSON. 


99 


Robinson good morning upon the sidewalk at a 
point about one hundred feet from the building. 
This was unfortunate for Captain Neale’s man, 
Barnes, who was waiting in the doorway. 

Elmendorf made no secret' of his identity or of 
his errand, and Robinson seemed quite undisturbed. 

I was pretty badly upset yesterday afternoon,” 
he said. It was all so sudden and shocking. Of 
course I had no special interest in Miss Miller. 
Probably I haven’t se'en her more than three or four 
times in my life. But to think that this should have 
happened so soon after I had left her ! I tell you it 
gave me a turn. I didn’t feel much like being alone, 
so I went to see a fellow whom I know and spent 
the night in his rooms. How is Miss Miller this 
morning? ” 

Elmendorf replied that his advices were alto- 
gether favorable, and little more was said until they 
had entered Alden’s private office, in which Robin- 
son had a desk. 

“ I thought you knew Miss Miller quite well,” 
said Elmendorf, taking a chair. “You spoke of 
her by her first name yesterday.” 

“ Did I ? ” said Robinson, opening his eyes wide. 
“ Well, I might have said almost anything yester- 
day. I was nervous, and that’s a fact.” 

“ How did it happen that you took the note ? ” 


I L.of C. 


lOO 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ Why, Mr. Alden was going to ring for a mes- 
senger boy,^’ was the reply, and then he mentioned 
that there was money in the note and asked me 
about one of our own boys, who happened to be 
out at the time. So I said Fd take the note. I 
wanted to go up to my room, and it’s only a little 
way from where Miss Miller lived. I hadn’t any- 
thing particular to do at the time.” 

“ What did you want to go to your room for? ” 

‘‘To get a letter I had left there,” replied Rob- 
inson. “ Nothing of any great importance.” 

“ Came for you in the morning, I suppose, and 
you forgot to bring it down,” said Elmendorf, with 
the air of one who hastens to dismiss a subject. 

“Yes; that was it.” 

“ Did you get it? ” 

“ Why, certainly.” 

“Where is it now?” demanded the detective. 

Robinson’s forehead began to perspire. 

“ I destroyed it,” he said. 

“ Who wrote it ? ” 

“ Why, what has that to do with ” 

“ Who wrote it? ” said Elmendorf, tapping on the 
floor with his cane. 

“ Fellow over in Philadelphia,” replied Robinson. 
“ But I don’t see ” 


A FEW WORDS WITH MR. ROBINSON. 


lOI 


Give me his name and address,” said the de- 
tective, taking out a note book and a pencil. 

‘‘ This is private business,” rejoined Robinson, 
mopping his face. “ It has nothing to do with this 
affair.” 

“ My dear sir,” said Elmendorf, in a case of this 
kind, when a man begins to lie, it’s always impor- 
tant. I happen to know that you haven’t had a letter 
come to that house since you’ve been living there, 
so you didn’t go up town to get one. In my opinion, 
you went up because you wanted to see Miss Miller. 
Isn’t that a fact?” 

“ You put me in a mighty bad place,” replied Rob- 
inson. Suppose I say that I did, how would that 
strike Mr. Alden?” 

‘‘ It won’t strike him at all,” said Elmendorf, ** be- 
cause I shan’t tell him. I don’t mean to intimate 
that you had anything particular to say to Miss 
Miller. But you’d seen her, you knew she was a 
very pretty and agreeable girl, and, like any other 
man, you didn’t object to seeing her again, even if 
it was only for four minutes. That’s all there is 
in it. So why not tell the truth?” 

“ I don’t deny that I had some such idea.” 

“ It was your motive for offering to take the note, 
and you had no other. Isn’t that a fact?” 


102 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Well, yes,*' replied Robinson, “ between our- 
selves, that's the truth." 

You had no errand at your room? " 

“ Of course not." 

“Then why did you go there?" demanded El- 
mendorf. “ Why did you go straight over there 
from Miss Miller's house?" 

“ I thought I’d change my clothes," said Robinson 
desperately. 

“ Did you change them ? Haven't you got on the 
same suit now that you wore down town yester- 
day?" 

“ Yes," said Robinson. “ I — I changed my mind." 

“ Instead of your clothes,” rejoined Elmendorf, 
with a smile. “ By the way, where were you born ? " 

Robinson's expression revealed some slight re- 
lief. 

“ In Honolulu," he said. “ I lived there until I 
was 21. Then my parents moved to Amoy, China. 
I came to this country about two years ago.'' 

“Where did you land?" 

“ San Francisco." 

“ Date of arrival and name of steamer?” said El- 
mendorf, taking up his note book again. 

Robinson was undisturbed this time. 

“ I've forgotten the exact date," he said, “and the 
steamer was a tramp. I can't recall her name." 


A FEW WORDS WITH MR. ROBINSON. 


103 


Asked what he had done in San Francisco, Rob- 
ioon replied that he had drifted across the con- 
tinent immediately, arriving in New York in April, 
a year ago. Very soon afterward he had had the 
good fortune to make the acquaintance of Mr. Al- 
den, who had taken a liking to him and given him 
his present position. He had few friends in this 
country. There was no one who knew him better 
than Alden did. 

‘‘ You look to me like a college bred man,"’ said 
Elmendorf, whereupon Robinson replied that there 
were excellent schools in Honolulu. 

Elmendorf traced orut a pattern in the rug with 
the end of his cane. “ The man has a record,*’ he 
was saying to himself. This story is a work of 
art. No cable to Honolulu, and Amoy is a long 
way from Mulberry street. It will take about six 
months to prove that this man never lived in the 
Sandwich Islands, unless we can strike his trail 
around here.” 

** Did you carry that cane yesterday ? ” asked El- 
mendorf suddenly, and Robinson promptly went 
into a blue chill which he strove to conceal. 

Yes — of course — no,” he stammered. ‘‘ I think 
that was what I went to my room for.” 

I think it wasn’t’,*' said Elmendorf, and at that 
moment, to the surprise of both, Alden entered the 


room. 


104 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER X. 

“ CLARENCE.” 

Alden looked years younger than yesterday. His 
expression had lost much of its painful concentra^ 
tion and intensity, though a shrewd man might say 
he was still under the domination of a single 
thought. 

“ Such splendid news at the hospital,” said he, 
‘'that I ventured down here for a few minutes. I 
can see her this afternoon. Jack,” he added, address- 
ing Robinson, “ you'll have to look out for my mail 
for the next few days. I shall be at Sf. Winifred’s 
all the time, or at the house next door on the west. 
Any news this morning, Mr, Elmendorf?” 

“ No,” replied the detective. “I came down to 
have a little talk with Mr. Robinson, but as neither 
of us knows anything, the result was not important. 
By the way, can I write a note at your desk ? ” 

Alden was just raising the lid. 

“ Certainly,” said he, and Elmendorf sat down and 
wrote fast' with a sputtering pen. 


CLARENCE.” 


Io5 

“ I don’t see any blotter here/’ he said, when the 
pen stopped scratching. 

Never use one,” rejoined Alden; don’t have 
time. There’s a pad, but I never blot anything on 
it.” 

You don’t spill as much ink as I do,” said El- 
mendorf, ‘‘ except on your signature. You write 
that black enough.” 

‘‘ Habit of mine,” replied Alden. “ How do you 
happen to know anything about it? ” 

“ I saw the note you wrote yesterday.” 

Alden flushed. 

“ I couldn’t help it,” said Elmendorf, hastily. 
“ And let' me tell you that I’m greatly mistaken if 
the result of my seeing it isn’t very important.” 

In what way?” 

Elmendorf begged to be excused from giving an 
immediate answer, and Alden did not insist. 

“ This ‘ making trouble ’ that you mentioned last 
evening,” he said, is getting its work in this morn- 
ing. I am shadowed by the most conspicuous man 
in Greater New York. Every time he fancies that 
I have forgotten his presence he barks like a dog 
and remarks to every one who will listen that the 
grip is worst in hot weather.” 

Elmendorf glanced at Alden with an anxious eye. 
He seemed to have something on his mind, but he 


I 06 EQUAL PARTNERS. 

said only : Fm surprised. There are shadows on 

the force who can’t be picked out so easily.” 

Alden regarded him intently over the top of the 
desk upon which he was leaning. 

“ See if I’ve got any more letters outside, Jack,” 
he said, and added when Robinson had left the 
room, “ Do you mean to say there’s another one ? ” 
Sure,” returned Elmendorf, ''one for trouble and 
one for business. I don’t know why I tell you these 
things, except that I hate Neale. He wants to know 
where you were yesterday, and he thinks you’ll go 
there again. He expects you to throw the man with 
the grip and never notice the other one.” 

" I’ll remember this, Elmendorf,” said Alden. 

" It’s a gift,” replied the detective. " As for that, 
you’ve paid me already with the information that 
you don’t use a blotter. Good morning. I’ll see you 
later in the day.” 

It may have been about half an hour afterward 
when he presented himself at the house where John 
Robinson lived and introduced himself to the land- 
lady thereof, with the result that he was presently 
ushered up two flights of stairs to a large room at 
the rear of the house. Left alone there, he remarked 
to himself, "This doesn’t seem to go against me 
sc much as it usually does.” 

Then he proceeded to examine the personal ef- 


clarence; 


107 


fects of Mr. Robinson. The examination was thor- 
ough, but the product was singularly meager. He 
discovered an envelope containing some pawn- 
broker’s tickets, showing loans upon a watch, a 
winter overcoat and a ring of small value, and in 
a waste paper basket a part of an envelope which 
had been addressed to some person in Philadelphia, 
but the name was missing. Remembering that Rob- 
inson had thought of Philadelphia first when grop- 
ing about for a falsehood, the latter discovery assumed 
some little importance as a guide for subsequent 
investigation. 

The particular object of the detective’s search 
eluded him, however, and when he left the house 
he was far from satisfied with his luck. 

I thought I knew why Robinson went home,” 
he said, but either I didn’t or he changed his 
mind.” 

He spent some hours in verifying Robinson’s 
statement about the place where he had passed the 
night, and in attempting to ascertain the young 
man’s favorite haunts and the names of his com- 
panions. The verification was easy, but the search 
for the man’s associates yielded little. Apparently, 
Robinson had not a wide circle of acquaintances. 

Returning to the lower regions of the city, Elmen- 
dorf encountered a bit of better fortune in learning 


io8 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


that Robinson had visited his place of employment 
on the previous day between 5 and 6 o’clock. 

“ If he’s the man,” reflected the detective, he 
took that money home, and then, not finding a sat- 
isfactory place to hide it, he brought it down here. 
By the everlasting, he must have had it in his pocket 
right there in Elsie Miller’s room! No wonder he 
had nervous prostration ! ” 

Alden, as was to have been expected, had left 
his office long before Elmendorf returned to it. 
Robinson also had gone away, but might come back 
soon. By the exercise of a little tact the detective 
secured permission to wait in the private office, and 
while there he familiarized himself thoroughly with 
the contents of Robinson’s desk, but it was not 
worth the trouble. 

It was difficult to suppose that Robinson was still 
carrying that money in his pocket. He must have 
put it somewhere. And Elmendorf racked his 
brains, asking the conventional and generally use- 
less question, ** What would I have done in the 
same circumstances? ” It came into his mind at last 
that Robinson had been present when Alden was 
arrested, and for this reason would not have expected 
to see him at the office again immediately. Thus re- 
flecting, Elmendorf drew some keys of convenient 
design from his pocket and cautiously raised the 


“CLARENCE.” 


109 

!id of Alden’s desk. It was fairly clear on its work- 
ing surface and t'he pigeonholes did not look prom- 
ising, so at random Elmendorf opened a little 
drawer in which, under some papers which seemed 
to have lain there a long time, he found an envelope 
addressed in typewritten characters to John Robin- 
son. 

The envelope looked fresh and the papers on top 
of it did not. The inference that the thing had 
been slid into a little-used drawer and under those 
old documents for purposes of concealment was as 
easy as possible. Elmendorf closed the drawer and 
the lid of the desk and walked to the window with 
the envelope in his hand. It looked suspicious, and 
the detective gently murmured that he would 
** chance it.’’ 

With the thin blade of a penknife he very adroitly 
raised the gummed lappet without inflicting any in- 
jury which could not be repaired. The envelope con- 
tained five $100 bills wrapped in a blank sheet of 
the firm’s paper. Two of the bills were slightly 
torn, as if some one had picked at them with a sharp 
point. 

Despite the coincidence of amounts, this was not 
necessarily the money mentioned in Alden’s note 
to Elsie. If, for instance, Mr. Robinson should say 
that he had frugally laid by that sum, and had 


no 


EQUAL partners: 


thought his employer’s desk the safest place for it, 
the statement would be equally hard to believe or to 
disprove. For this reason Elmendorf scrutinized 
the bills with an eager eye, and when he found upon 
one of them a peculiar mark, as if a word of a 
strange language had been scrawled there, he was 
more than pleased. Raising the lower sash of the 
window, he made a mirror of the glass by holding 
the cuff of his black coat against it. Placing the 
bill before this mirror, he beheld the strange word 
reversed, and it became legible as “ Clarence.” 

The signature was blotted against' the money,” 
said he. It couldn’t be anything else. The bills 
were folded into the note while the signature was 
wet, and of course it printed itself on one of them.” 

If Robinson had entered the room at that mo- 
ment, he would have been arrested for attempted 
murder, but he did not come in. Whether this was 
his luck or Elmendorf’s may be hard to determine. 

The detective sat down by Alden’s desk, holding 
the money in his hand. His face wore a look of 
triumph, but it was not pleasant to see, for the re- 
sentment which this crime had inspired in him was 
burning in his heart. He was not the hunter who 
does a day’s work in the woods and counts his gains 
with dull interest at night. He was the man who 
has caught the wolf that killed the pet lamb. 


“ CLARENCE.’ 


Ill 


But there came a slow change upon him. His 
face was puckered around the eyes, and his lower 
lip got between his teeth. Presently with a hasty 
hand he scribbled upon a sheet of paper this sen- 
tence : 

“ For further particulars inquire of William El- 
mendorf, New York detective bureau, 300 Mulberry 
street.” 

This message he inclosed instead of the money 
in the envelope, which he carefully resealed. He 
held it balanced upon two fingers for a moment, 
eying it critically. Then he replaced it' in the 
drawer under the papers. 

The knife with which he had opened the envelope 
was lying open upon the desk. He picked it up, 
pulled down the desk’s lid and drew out one of the 
sliding leaves, upon which he beat out a gentle 
tune with the point of the knife blade. He had 
worn a little hole in the wood without being aware 
of it, when he heard Robinson’s voice just outside 
the door. 

Elmendorf suddenly gripped the knife hard and 
set the point on the back of his left hand. Then, with 
a bit of a laugh, he shifted the knife to his left hand, 
and slowly, steadily pressed the blade down upon the 
other. This Spartan act was accompanied by much 
wrinkling of the forehead and a few hard words softly 


II2 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Uttered. When Robinson opened the door, the knife 
was lying on the floor and Elmendorf was striding 
toward a bowl in the corner. 

‘‘ Dropped my knife on the back of my hand,” 
he said. Sharp blade and it went in deep.” 

Robinson came forward hastily and viewed the 
injured member, from which a steady stream of 
blood was flowing. 

‘‘Bleeds like the deuce!” said he. “You must 
have cut an artery.” 

Elmendorf looked keenly at Robinson, holding his 
'hand meanwhile in a stream of cold water. 

“ It will stop in half a minute,” said the detective. 
“ If you’ll pull my handkerchief out of my pocket 
,and tear off a couple of strips, we’ll tie it up.” 

Robinson assisted in this operation, by request, 
but he was awkward and nervous and seemed not 
to relish the sight of blood. When it was done, 
Elmendorf thanked him cordially, asked a few triv- 
ial questions and departed. Half an hour later he 
delivered the five $ioo bills to the chief of the de- 
tective bureau with a full report upon the manner 
in which they had come into his possession and the 
tmethod by which he had succeeded in identifying 
one of them. 


ST. WINIFRED’S MORNING. 


I13 


CHAPTER XL 
ST. Winifred's morning. 

When the sun had been up three hours, it was able 
to look over a low portion of St. Winifred's building 
and see the window of the room where Elsie lay- 
asleep. The sudden increase of light awoke her, 
and she found that Brenda was holding both her 
hands. 

“ I was afraid you would move too much and hurt 
yourself,” said she. ** 1 knew you must wake soon. 
How do you feel ? ” 

Elsie winked her eyes and twisted the left corner 
of her mouth, with the air of one who is testing a 
bruise to see how sore it is. 

“ There was a girl who felt better once a long 
time ago,” she said, ‘‘ but it doesn't matter. Haven't 
you been to bed all this night? ” 

“ I have slept on the couch,” replied Brenda. My 
maid brought down this loose gown, and I've been 
very comfortable. I have had some things brought 
from your house, too.” 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


II4 

“Did you get my little silver mirror? asked 
Elsie, with eagerness. “ Oh, how good of you ! 
Please let me have it.” 

Brenda gave her the mirror and she gazed long 
and intently into it; then she sighed and laid down 
the glass. 

“ All gone,” she said. “ Well, that doesn’t matter 
either. Nothing matters any more. But I used to 
think I would be pretty when I was dead.” 

“ So you will, my dear,” answered Brenda. 
“You’ll have a sweeter, prettier face than you have 
now — the dearest old grandmother’s face, with 
beautiful white curls all around — and the children 
who come to kiss you will cry like a little shower 
on a May morning, but they will be better children 
afterward, for they will want to live the life that 
brings sndh happy sleep at the end of it.” 

“I wish I could say things like that,” said Elsie. 
“ Even if they aren’t true they make people feel 
good. I — look — fierce! Don’t I, honestly?” 

“ Fierce ! ” echoed Brenda. “ Why, anything 
else in the world, I should say.” 

“ That’s slang,” said Elsie. “ It merely means 
terrible.” 

“Well, I’d hardly agree to that word either,” said 
Brenda. “You don’t inspire any terror in me. 


ST. WINIFRED’S MORNING. 


I15 

YouVe only a little bit pale, and perhaps you have 
cried too much.” 

'‘You must think I am a perfect baby. Really it 
isn’t so. I have borne some things in this life fairly 
well. I would bear much more and be as happy as 
any girl if I only knew how. But there’s no way. 
My life is in a tangle that cannot be unwound. I 
just simply can^t go on, Brenda. That’s what I felt 
when I opened my eyes in this place the first time 
and. while I lay thinking, before I would let Dr. Ken- 
dall know I was conscious. There is no way, abso- 
lutely no way ” 

Her voice began to tremble, but she resolutely 
checked the tendency. 

“ How everything settles down on you in the 
morning!” she said. “You wake so happy. Per- 
haps you have dreamed of the pleasantest things. I 
almost always dream of people I like and of being 
with them in the fields or abroad somewhere in a 
strange city and all dressed up in the most wonder- 
ful clothes, and then the reality begins to come 
down, like — like a great bale of rags. I saw them 
loading a barge with rags once — she was alongside 
a steamer — and I always remembered how those 
dirty, heavy, stifling bales came down. They were 
like life.” 

“ Your life hasn’t been altogether a bale of rags, 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


1 16 

my young friend/* said Brenda, “ and unless I’m 
much mistaken it will be in the future quite like 
some of those dreams. There was a young man 
who made a promise or two about strange cities 
and beautiful clothes. You know,” she added, red- 
dening a little. “ I saw Mr. Alden’s note to you, 
and I was tricked into reading a part of it.” 

“ I suppose it will be printed in the papers,” said 
Elsie, ‘‘ with your picture and mine, and Mr. Alden’s. 
Isn’t this awful? It is so absolutely horrible that 
there’s no use being polite about it. But really I never 
meant to do you any harm. I never encouraged Mr. 
Alden. I loved him from the beginning. The very 
first evening I saw him I went home and cried about 
him, but when he began to come to see me I made him 
think that I didn’t care for him. I actually did make 
him think so.” 

I know it,” replied Brenda, gently. “ He told 
me so.” 

‘‘ It was only on that last evening that I let him 
guess the truth,” said Elsie, and how I did that, 
heaven may know. Suddenly he seemed to see it, and 
then, honestly, I had no opportunity to deny it. I 
didn’t speak a word in two hours. Mr. Alden talked 
for both of us, making my arguments for me, and then 
answering them without the faintest perception that 
they weren’t really mine at all. In fact, he was like a 


ST. WINIFRED’S MORNING. 


II7 


big boy, so carried away with his own idea that all the 
world seemed to be rushing along in the way he 
wished. It was only when he talked about sending me 
a lot of money to buy wedding clothes that I managed 
to make myself heard, and even then he thought that 
my objection was altogether to the money, and not to 
the wedding. Remember that I was not much calmer 
than he, and you will have some idea of the confusion. 
Oh, Brenda, how can I talk to you like this ? And you 
don’t seem to care in the least. Are we all crazy 
together ? ” 

Some of us have been so, perhaps,” said Brenda, 
“ but this morning I think we are all particularly sane.” 

“ It was wrong, of course, to let him come to see 
me,” Elsie continued. ‘‘ But it must end soon, and it 
was so little, and you would have so much. You know 
in those days I hated you, envied you, lay awake at 
night to think bitter thoughts about you, with your 
beauty and position, and luxury ! Oh, I saw you ! I 
walked up and down in front of your house for an hour 
one day until you came out and got into your carriage. 
And I wished the horses would run away with you, and 
just as the thought flashed into my mind one of them 
began to prance, and I actually prayed out loud, be- 
cause I was so afraid he really would run, after I had 
wished it.” 

i The rhetorical value of this speech was somewhat 


Il8 EQUAL PARTNERS. 

marred by the circumstance that Elsie's face was being 
washed while it was delivered. Having rendered this 
service, Brenda began to arrange her patient's hair. 

'' I felt so small and shabby outside your house," 
said Elsie. ** You can’t have any idea of it. Fancy 
that mansion full of servants, all yours, and there was 
I, who was in need of shoes. I don’t mean to say they 
were full of holes, or anything like that, but they didn’t 
look very nice, and I couldn’t afford to buy a new pair, 
for I was saving every penny. My mother and I have 
a little income, and I was down to that, for I hadn't 
had an engagement since February. I suppose you 
never wasted your time in thinking about me — after 
you knew there was such a girl." 

I never knew there was such a girl," replied 
Brenda, “ until I saw you in this room. The girl I 
thought about never existed. And now let me say this : 
There is no rivalry between us. There are matches so 
manifestly made in heaven that even a woman's jeal- 
ousy must admit the divine sanction. So don't think of 
* sparing my feelings,' as my New England aunt ex- 
presses it, or ‘ being polite,' to use your own phrase 
for the same idea. You and Mr. Alden were made for 
each other. If I had been writing a book or a play, I 
might have tried to create two people so perfectly 
reciprocal. The way is made smooth for me to be a 
friend to both of you.” 


ST. WINIFRED’S MORNING. 


II9 

Elsie turned her head suddenly, and kissed Brenda’s 
hand. Then she relapsed into thoug'ht, which culmi- 
nated in her saying : 

“ You couldn’t have loved him. I ought not to say 
that, of course, but it’s true. Divine sanction hasn’t 
an3rthing to do with jealousy. They don’t come from 
the same locality. I have always been jealous when- 
ever I have been in love.” 

She looked up out of the comer of her eye, to catch 
the effect of the shock. 

** Whenever you have been in love ! ” cried Brenda. 
“ I hope it hasn’t happened often.” 

“ Well, not so very often,” replied Elsie. “ I re- 
member being in love with an actor once, for as much 
as two weeks. You spoke about putting Mr. Alden 
and me into play. Well, this man resembled Mr. 
Alden, and we were in the same aggregation of genius. 
He was just as much like Mr. Alden as the man they 
get to play Napoleon in a third-rate road company pro- 
duction of * Sans Gene ’ is like the real Napoleon. They 
pick out a fellow with the right kind of nose. How- 
ever, I loved him with a consuming ardor. I remember 
leaning out of a window of a fierce little hotel, in a jay 
town in the West, to watch him sitting on a fence in the 
moonlight, smoking a cigar after the show. I imagined 
that he might be thinking of me. By and by another 
fellow in the company came along, and asked him if he 


120 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


was enjoying the moon. And my idol said: ‘To — 
somewhere — with the moon. I was waiting for you to 
buy me a drink.' It wasn't very bad, but it was coarse, 
and I didn’t love him any more after that, and as he 
had never taken the sliglitest notice of me the romance 
was not serious, except that I caught an awful cold 
leaning out of that window. Now, why did I tell you 
that story, Brenda ? " 

“ Because it is amusing, I suppose," said Brenda, 
surprised by the question. 

“ Because at that time I was not quite seventeen 
years old," said Elsie, “ and I was traveling around the 
country alone. My mother was not strong enough to 
go with me, and we both needed money very badly." 

While Brenda was striving to grasp the full meaning 
of this, being well assured that Elsie spoke with a defi- 
nite purpose, there came a rap at the door, announcing 
the morning visit of Dr. Kendall. Brenda was suffi- 
ciently and very becomingly attired, and not so much 
as a single shining thread of her hair showed the 
smallest disarray, yet she could not help feeling a sense 
of disadvantage. Having leaned upon the convention- 
alities quite steadily all her life, she had come to need 
them, and Dr. Kendall was to her a young man whom 
she had met in society rather than a physician. She 
was surprised and a little ashamed to find that this 
was true. 


ST. WINIFRED’S MORNING. 


12 


As for Kendall, he was all doctor that morning. He 
had been detained from Elsie longer than he would 
have wished, and that strange thing which is a doctor’s 
conscience was driving him hard. He wasted no time 
in words until he had satisfied himself about his 
patient. In the course of his investigation he discov- 
ered that Elsie still calmly believed that she would die 
of her wound, and this was the more remarkable be- 
cause she had not at that time any sensations which a 
rational mind could attribute to the approach of disso- 
lution. There was pain, of course, but it was not of 
the kind that depresses and frightens the sufferer. 

The doctor spoke to her in the most encouraging 
words that he could command, but they seemed not to 
produce an adequate effect. Els5ie said little upon the 
subject of death, but it was clear that her mind was 
fixed upon it. 

“ I must hurry away,” said the doctor. “ Mr. Alden 
is waiting in my room, in a state of anxiety that I need 
not describe. I shall not only relieve that completely, 
but I shall tell him that he may see you this afternoon, 
five minutes precisely, and Miss Maclane will hold the 
watch.” 

‘‘Tell him, please,” said Elsie, “that I thank him 
very much for the violets; also, that I received his 
message, and that he must not think of it any more. 
You will remember? He must put it out of his mind.” 


122 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Kendall glanced somewhat uneasily at Brenda, as he 
repeated this singular message. 

“ I received from Mrs. Simmons,” said he, a tele- 
gram sent to her from your mother — that is, from one 
of the family. I haven't it here; must have left it in 
my room ” — and he pretended to search his pockets. 
“ It said that your mother was not quite well enough 
to start at once, and, in view of the encouraging tele- 
grams sent last night, your relatives wouldn't let her 
come unless she was quite able to make the journey. 
Mrs. Simmons's message, sent' immediately after you 
were hurt, vras quite alarming. I'm afraid, but we have 
corrected all that.'' 

** My mother is prostrated,'' said Elsie, her eyes fill- 
ing with tears, ** and I shall never see her again.'' 

‘‘I assure you that you will,'' replied Kendall, 
earnestly, *^and, by the way, here's a letter from her. 
It came this morning, I was told. There was no other 
mail for you.'' 

'' It’s strange what has become of Mr. Alden's let- 
ter,'' said Elsie, “ the one he mentioned in that note.'' 

“ Do you mean that you didn’t receive it ? ” ex- 
claimed Brenda. 

Elsie shook her head. 

“ It didn’t come,” she said. 

Kendall did not understand the significance of this, 
as he had no accurate knowledge of the contents of 


ST. WINIFRED’S MORNING. 


123 


the note. He arose and moved toward the door, 
Brenda accompanying him. 

‘‘ If you should chance to meet Mr. Elmendorf this 
morning/’ said she, “ perhaps it would be better not 
to mention what you have just heard.” 

“About the letter?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I will not speak of it,” said Kendall, “ and as 
to the message which I shall take to Mr. Alden from 
Miss Miller, while of course I attach no sinister mean- 
ing to it, I shall take pains to forget it immediately.” 

“We cannot know what it is that she wishes him to 
put out of his mind,” said Brenda. “ Perhaps his love 
for her.” 

“ We will take that view of it,” replied Kendall. 

At this moment a nurse came to take instructions 
about breakfast for Brenda and the patient, and she 
brought word that Mr. Maclane was in the reception 
room, very anxious to see his daughter. 


124 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER XIL 

NERVES AND HEARTS. 

Duncan Maclane was a man whose aspect should 
have been dignified and impressive. It had been so — 
indeed, still was — when his nerves were under con- 
trol, but that was a rare condition in his latter days. 

On the occasion of his morning call at St. Wini- 
fred’s, while he waited for Brenda’s appearance, it 
was to him as if his nervous system walked the floor 
unclothed in flesh or garments. This is the state 
which New England old ladies describe as “jumping 
out of your skin,” and the phrase fits it nicely. Before 
Dr. Kendall took him out of the reception room to a 
more private place he was an object of sympathetic 
interest to several poor persons waiting there, for they 
supposed that he must have some near relative at the 
point of death in the institution. 

His pockets and his hands were full of newspapers, 
and they were to a considerable extent accountable for 
his condition. The marvelous delineative power of the 
modem press had been exerted upon the mystery of 


NERVES AND HEARTS. 


125 


Elsie Miller, with a result which the young woman 
herself had but dimly foreseen when she had spoken 
of it as so absolutely horrible as to extinguish the 
virtue of politeness altogether. The story was told 
from fifty points of view, and ever the stately and 
beautiful figure of Brenda Maclane moved through it 
like a stage ghost, having a carefully wrought effect 
of intangibleness and transparency, yet steadfastly at- 
tended by the calcium light. 

No one accused Brenda of the smallest wrong, no 
one ventured to identify her with the mysterious 
woman seen by Dr. Blair, yet with great cleverness 
the plot was so arranged that Brenda’s figure in the 
ghostly light stood best displayed upon the very spot 
where the mysterious one seemed to have sunk out of 
sight as if into a grave. 

“ Brenda, my child, what shall we do ? ” exclaimed 
Mr. Maclane, and he extended toward his daughter 
two trembling hands that were full of newspapers. 
Do? ” said Brenda. “ About what? ” 

The papers are crowded with it ! ” he groaned. 

Look at this ! Look at these pictures ! ” 

“ Well, I think this one is rather good of me,” re- 
plied Brenda. ‘‘ I wonder where they got the photo- 
graph. Oh, but see Mr. Alden! They’ve made him 
look like the pirate Kidd.” 


126 


EQUAL PARTNERS’ 


“ You seem to take no serious view of this 1 ” he 
cried. 

“Father, why should we?’’ she replied earnestly. 
“ Here is a dear little girl that has escaped a dreadful 
peril, and I am so glad of it, so religiously, prayerfully 
glad of it, that this publicity affects me not the least.” 

“ I think you have lost your wits, Brenda,” said he. 
“ Why, you’re all mixed up in it. They practically ac- 
cuse you of going to that house” 

“ I did go there,” replied Brenda. 

“ I mean before the deed — at the very moment of 
it” 

“ Let me see,” said Brenda, who was already scan- 
ning the reports. “ I don’t see anything here that isn’t 
true. They are much fainer to Mr. Alden than I would 
have supposed. Let us read the reports calmly. Ah, 
so ! This mention of my poor little romance might be 
somewhat trying to a sensitive nature, like my father’s, 
which I fortunately did not inherit.” 

“ This linking of your name with this woman’s,” he 
groaned, “ is most unfortunate. She is continually 
referred to as an actress.” 

“ She is one,” said Brenda, “ and, between our- 
selves, I think she must be exceptionally clever. I 
hope Clarence will not make her leave the stage yet 
until she has had a career of her own — a year or two 
before she effaces herself by marriage.” 


NERVES AND HEARTS. 


127 


“ It seems to me,” said he, " that in trying to be fair 
to this woman, in trying to set aside all prejudice and 
natural resentment, you have gone to an absurd ex- 
treme upon the other side. You can never have any- 
thing in common with her. There can be no question 

of friendly relations” 

But there can,” replied Brenda. “ Forgive me for 
contradicting my dear old father, who is always so 
worried about me and always so good to me. I shall 
make her my friend, if I can, and you will be glad 
when you know her.” 

Maclane raised his hands toward heaven, sprinkling 
the floor with fragments of newspapers as he did so. 
It was his usual gesture of defeat. 

“ And now,” said Brenda, “ to use your favorite ex- 
pression, let’s get down to business. I am here to take 
care of Miss Miller, and you will not ask me to desert 
her when you learn that Dr. Kendall says I am a won- 
derful nurse. By the way, you see I am in the very 
best society, for there can’t be anything above the old 
Philadelphia Kendalls. However, to return to busi- 
ness, I see clearly enough where all this is tending. 
The papers speak only good of me this morning. Pri- 
vate gossip will scarcely know what to say for a day 
or two, but in the end, unless something is done to 
prevent it, I shall become identical with this mysterious 
woman, and the actual object of suspicion. That, I 


128 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


admit, would be a misfortune, for if the case remains 
a mystery, as I think it may, I shall never be clear of 
the taint of it.” 

“ But doesn’t the girl know who did it ? ” demanded 
Maclane. “ They hint that she is shielding some one, 
and you will find some very unpleasant things about 
Alden.” 

He is entirely innocent,” said Brenda. “ Of course 
you know that as well as I do. The best thing for all 
of us is to establish the fact immediately that the 
crime was the work of a thief.” 

“ But suppose it wasn’t ? ” 

Then,” said Brenda, it must be made to appear 
so. 

‘‘ I see what you mean,” replied he, “ and I will con- 
sult my lawyer about it. I have already discovered that 
he understands the police thoroughly. Perhaps some- 
thing may be done by the use of plenty of money. 
Meanwhile I would like to be satisfied about Mr. 
Alden. It is not fair to you that he should conceal his 
defense, if he has one. The sooner the case is thor- 
oughly cleared of that mystery the better for us.” 

Reduced to a theft,” said Brenda, ‘‘ the papers will 
cease to print much about it.” 

“ You are quite right,” replied Mr. Maclane. “ But 
my first move will be in Alden’s direction. I must 
know where he stands, or there will be no safety for 


HEARTS AND NERVES. 


129 


you in any line of action. If he is guilty, we must 
not appear as his accomplices after the fact.” 

‘‘ That is monstrous,” insisted Brenda. “ Do not 
consider it.” 

They spoke for some minutes of minor matters, 
turning over the papers together, while Brenda selected 
such portions as she thought that Dr. Kendall might 
permit Elsie to see. The sight of these stories, with 
their abundant illustrations, set Mr. Maclane’s nerves 
on edge again, and he was in a most wretched frame of 
mind when he left the hospital. 

It chanced that as he emerged from the structure 
he encountered Alden, who had just come from Ken- 
dall’s room, and was full of good will to all mankind 
as the result of the conversation with the doctor. He 
felt that Maclane had a just grievance against him, 
and he began at once a most earnest attempt to repair 
the injury. Maclane was relieved to find Alden in a 
pliant mood — the rarest of all his moods, by the way — 
and the two walked toward the avenue together in an 
atmosphere of cordiality such as surrounds sometimes 
the unfriendly victims of a common misfortune. 

Upon arriving at his office Alden met Detective Elm- 
endorf, with the result already disclosed. Profiting by 
the advice received in the course of this interview, 
and by his memories of many stories of crimes, crim- 
inals and sleuth-hounds of the law, Alden succeeded 


130 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


in eluding both the shadow of “ trouble ” and the shad- 
ow of “ business,” and his doings for an hour or two 
were wholly unknown to the police. At 3 o’clock he 
appeared at St. Winifred’s Hospital, where he was 
informed by Dr. Kendall that Elsie would receive him 
presently. 

At that moment Elsie was confiding to Brenda her 
opinion that Mr. Alden would suffer a grievous disap- 
pointment. 

‘‘ He won’t expect to see me like this,” she said. “ I 
look like Death’s head on a handspike, as my cousin 
Billy says. Billy was in the naval reserves during the 
war and prevented the Spaniards from capturing New 
York, but that’s another story. Brenda, if I should 
put on just a little bit of rouge — I don’t want to 
frighten him.” 

“ You don’t want to think of rouge for ten years,” 
replied Brenda. And besides, my dear, you haven’t 
any. Moreover, he won’t know how you look ; he will 
be too glad to see you alive.” 

** Of course you think I am very trivial and absurd,” 
said Elsie, “ but do you realize that he may not see me 
again? No one can know precisely how I am hurt. 
This wound may be nearer to a vital spot than Dr. 
Kendall suspects or will tell. And then that horrible 
little knife, that fragment lost in my breast : when will 
it stab me to death ? A break of a wall as thin as paper. 


NERVES AND HEARTS. 


131 

a little blood spilled here beneath my hand, and I am 
gone in a moment. Perhaps to-night; perhaps even 
while he sits here beside me. And this last sight of me 
will be the memory he will carry as long as he lives. 
I want it to blot out the face of every other girl that he 
will ever see.” 

“ Then don’t blot out your own with the contents of 
a rouge pot,” said Brenda. “ Hark ! They are coming 
along the corridor.” 

She stepped to the door and ushered in Alden and 
Kendall. 

Alden had the pale, set face of Nathan Hale going 
to execution. As often happens with a man too strenu- 
ously prepared, his eyes failed to focus, and he stared 
for a moment at Elsie without really seeing her. Had 
she been the wasted and pitiable object that his inex- 
perience had led him to expect, he would probably have 
borne the sight of her with great fortitude, but when 
her face emerged from the mists of imperfect vision 
precisely Elsie’s, with every well remembered attribute 
of beauty, it was an attack upon an unprotected spot 
in his defenses, and every drop of blood in his body 
cried out with the voice of one great sob. 

This is what I was afraid of,” muttered Kendall. 
“ Confound him ! I knew he’d break down.” 

He glanced uneasily at Elsie, but she seemed quite 


132 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


calm. She extended her hand toward Alden, and he 
kissed it, falling on his knees beside the bed. 

“ You must not feel sorry for me,’’ said she. I am 
very comfortable, and I waste no time in pitying my- 
self. It was very kind of you to send the violets.” 

“ Dean little girl,” he said, still kneeling, '' every 
minute of my life shall be yours to make this right.” 

“ You are not to speak that way,” replied Elsie, with 
that manner which accompanies long considered words. 
“ You have your own life to lead. You must not spoil 
it for me.” 

Alden’s face was gray with anxiety as he looked into 
Elsie’s. 

“ Don’t say we have gone back ; that it’s all like long 
ago,” he began. But the warning eye of the vigilant 
Kendall, who had softly stepped to the head of the bed, 
upon the other side, checked this plea. Alden writhed 
with the effort, but his will held him. 

“ I mustn’t worry you,” he said ; then, with half an 
eye on Kendall: “ Elsie, who did this? Tell me, little 
girl.” 

[ ‘ I don’t know ; really I don’t,” she answered. “ Why 

So you think that I do? ” 

Again the doctor silently protested and Alden took 
heed. 

** I had not heard it from you,” he said. ** But let us 
put it out of our minds. What can I do for you? Is 


NERVES AND HEARTS. 


133 


there anything you need? We will hold a conference 
on the subject.” 

“ Brenda would get me anything in the world,” re- 
plied Elsie. She has been as good as two mothers to 
me. Brenda, what do I want ? ” 

“ Rest and an easy mind and your real mother as 
soon as she can come,” replied Brenda. “ As to Mr. 
Alden’s contribution, I would suggest a pretty picture 
or two to put on the walls. They would relieve the eye. 
Elsie has asked for Tantalus, but the art committee, 
consisting of Dr. Kendall and myself, refuses to hang 
him.” 

“ The art committee is all right,” said Alden. I 
shall submit some pictures to it with confidence.” 

Thus the talk drifted from topics too exciting, and 
some minutes were spent pleasantly and conventionally 
enough. Then, as Alden was about to take his leave, 
Elsie suddenly began to weep very bitterly and without 
apparent cause, for it was a parting for a few hours. 
To Brenda afterward she said in explanation, “ To 
think that I might have died and never have seen him 
again ! ” 

As the matter seemed to involve the health of the 
patient and certainly the regulation of Mr. Alden^s 
visits, Brenda considered herself bound to report the 
remark to Dr. Kendall. 

It is all very mysterious to me,” she said. “ She 


134 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


loves him with her soul and body, but she believes that 
it is all over.^’ 

“ She will not always think so,” replied Brenda. 

That may be true,” he said, “ but I think I know 
her, and, so thinking, I hope my own wedding won^t 
have to wait for theirs.” 

‘‘Your wedding!” exclaimed Brenda in surprise. 
“ I did not know it was arranged.” 

“ Of the three persons most intimately concerned 
in it,” he replied, “ two are already to be counted up>on 
— myself and the clergyman. As to the other, there is 
much doubt.” 

“ Let us hope it will vanish.” 

“ Hope is a thin diet for the affections,” said he, 
“ but they live long on it sometimes.” 


ELSIE CHOOSES A CONFIDANT. 


135 


CHAPTER XIII. 

ELSIE CHOOSES A CONFIDANT. 

On the following morning Captain Neale appeared 
at St. Winifred^s, demanding an interview with Elsie. 
Kendall had succeeded in refusing a similar demand 
upon the previous evening and would have been glad 
to do it again, for he dreaded Neale in a sickroom as 
if he had been the angel of septicaemia, but the doctor 
could not honestly say that Elsie's condition was such 
as to justify him in shielding her from all questioning. 

As for the captain, he was up against a new game," 
to use his own expression. Never before had he been 
held back from the bedsides of the afflicted in institu- 
tions wholly or partially under municipal control, and 
doubtless upon this account there were fortunate souls 
in paradise who might otherwise still have been strug- 
gling in this probationary state. When Kendall de- 
murred, Neale strongly intimated that he would 
‘‘make trouble" for the doctor, but it was his own 
conscience and not his fears which decided Kendall's 
action. 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


136 

** You can see lier/’ he said, if you will behave 
vourseH.” 

And Neale was speechless in the presence of this 
audacity. It was not that Neale was a captain of 
police, for such an officer may or may not amount 
to a row of pins; it was that he was Joe Neale, the 
man with a ** pull.” Therein lay the terror of his 
wrath. 

For as well as Elsie could be prepared for this in- 
terview she shuddered and turned pale when her 
eyes first rested upon the peculiar, grimacing counte- 
nance of the captain, more distressing than usual 
at that moment, because he was trying to look 
beneficent. Neale had a singular delusion that he 
could be and seem to be all things to all people, 
although, in fact', his voice, his face and his manner 
were more rigidly incapable of disguise than those 
of any other man between the two oceans. He had 
a monkey^s pride in imitation without a trace of the 
monkey’s capacity for it, and upon this occasion he 
was engaged in counterfeiting the demeanor of a 
family physician because he knew that Kendall did 
not believe he could do it. And it was his expressed 
conviction afterward that he had made the doctor 

feel foolish.” 

“ Good morning,” said he. “ Glad to see you 
looking so fine. You’ll be out in a week, and by the 


ELSIE CHOOSES A CONFIDANT. 


137 


first of the month you’ll be throwing kisses over 
the footlights again.” 

Elsie’s forehead reddened with wrath, and she 
opened her mouth to say something that would have 
shown more spirit than discretion; but, catching 
Brenda’s eye, she suddenly closed her lips tightly. 

Neale turned to Brenda. 

“ It does my heart good,” he said, “ to see you 
here taking care of the sick — z society lady like 
you. I call it great. There’s few that would do 
it. Now, I’ll bet the limit that you’ve been up half 
the night taking care of this poor little girl. You 
need rest. I can see that. And what I say is that it 
wouldn’t do you a bit of hurt to go lay down while 
me and the doctor looks out for things here.” 

“ Do you mean that you wish me to leave the 
room ? ” inquired Brenda, with a glance at Kendall. 

The doctor’s face was wearing that indescribable 
expression incident to the first stage of seasickness. 
He nodded, and Brenda walked toward the door, 
which Kendall opened for her, while Neale bowed 
several times as she departed. Then the captain 
drew up a chair to the side of the bed, upon the edge 
of which he laid his enormous and hairy hand, 
clinched, with the knuckles uppermost. Elsie 
looked at it, fascinated, wondering if it could really 
be a hand. 


138 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


We got to have a little light on this woman,” 
said the captain. 

“ What woman ? ” inquired Elsie faintly. 

“ The one who called on you that afternoon,” he re- 
plied. 

‘‘Miss Miller has already said ” — Kendall began, but 
the captain lifted his hand from the bed, thereby caus- 
ing one side of it to rise suddenly, and made a gesture 
of protest. 

** She’ll do the answering,” he said. 

** Who says that any woman called on me ? ” de- 
manded Elsie. 

“ Now, don’t get excited,” responded the captain. 
“ It’s well known that somebody was there. Dr. Blair 
saw her leaving the house.” 

Elsie remained silent for a moment. Then she said : 

** There might have been fifty women leave the house 
and I know nothing about it. What did this woman 
look like? ” 

Haven’t you seen the newspapers? ” asked Neale. 

^'Only some little pieces — just to look at the pic- 
tures,” she replied. Dr. Kendall didn’t wish me to 
read the stories.” 

“ Did you see the pictures of the * mysterious 
woman,’ drawn from description?” 

“ No.” 


ELSIE CHOOSES A CONFIDANT. 


139 


“Miss Maclane didn’t show them to you? Well, 
well ! How singular ! ” 

“ I selected the things to be shown to Miss Miller,” 
said Kendall ; “ most of them.” 

“ And you cut out all about the mysterious woman ? ” 
queried Neale. Why?” 

“ It was not intentional,” replied the doctor, red- 
dening. “ I merely happened to do it.” 

“ I guess Miss Maclane helped you,” said Neale. 

“What has Miss Maclane to do with it?” asked 
Elsie. 

“ A good many people think she was the woman,” 
replied the captain. “ It’s beginning to be said all 
over, but there’s one person who thinks so and won’t 
say so — yet.” 

“ Who’s that ? ” said Elsie. 

“ Dr. Blair,” responded Neale. “You know who he 
is?” 

“ I’ve met him,” she replied. “ Mrs. Simmons got 
him to come to see me once when I was sick. I think 
he was staying at the house then. What has he to do 
with this affair ? ” 

The captain explained. 

“ It seems to me,” said Elsie, “ that anybody who 
ever saw Miss Maclane would know her next time. 
If Dr. Blair says that he doesn’t recognize her, then 
she isn’t the woman he saw.” 


140 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ Do you deny that she called upon you ? ” persisted 
the captain. 

“ I certainly do deny it/’ replied Elsie, with decision. 

“ Perhaps it was some other woman who looked like 
her,” suggested Neale. 

“ I don’t know any woman who looks like her,” said 
Elsie. “ I never saw one who did.” 

The captain glanced at Kendall and said slowly: 

‘‘ She doesn’t know anybody who looks like Miss 
Maclane.” 

“ Well,” said Kendall, “ what of it? ” 

“ Why, neither does anybody else in the house,” re- 
plied the captain. “ So Miss Maclane is the only 
woman of that kind, so far as we know, who could 
have any motive for going there. And somebody 
zvent” 

Elsie was beginning to be excited to the danger 
point, and Kendall cut off the interview, Neale yielding 
without a word of protest. 

“ Don’t you worry ; not a bit,” said he to Elsie. 
“ There ain’t going to be no trouble for anybody, ex- 
cept the guilty party.” 

When the captain had gone, Elsie pleaded with 
Kendall to let her see Dr. Blair. 

‘‘All these stories about Brenda must rest upon 
what he says,” she insisted, '' and if I tell him posi- 
tively, face to face, that it was not Brenda, he will 


ELSIE CHOOSES A CONFIDANT. 


141 

make a statement that will put an end to all the trouble. 
And it is worrying Brenda. I am sure of it. She 
tries to hide it from me, but there is something preying 
on her mind. Of course I have not understood what 
it was, but now I can see. We must remember how 
hard it is for a girl brought up as she has been, all 
surrounded by dignity and refinement, to have her 
name in everybody’s mouth in connection with such 
an affair as this.” 

Kendall was inclined to take a favorable view of 
this suggestion. His own opinion, formed from the 
newspaper reports, was that Dr. Blair was a consci- 
entious man who was trying to tell the exact truth in 
a very serious matter; that he believed it was Miss 
Maclane whom he had seen, but was wise and just 
enough not to say so upon any other ground than 
positive certainty. Upon the other hand, he would 
not declare openly that the woman was not Brenda 
until his mind was clear of doubt. It might easily 
happen that a talk with Elsie would result in thor- 
oughly convincing him, and for Elsie there was noth- 
ing to be feared, since Blair as a physician would 
know how to avoid exciting her. 

Accordingly Kendall said that he would send word 
to Blair during the afternoon. As it happened, he had 
leisure to go himself upon this errand, and as outdoor 


142 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


air would have the charm of novelty for him he took 
advantage of the opportunity. 

He was surprised at the meager furnishing of his 
professional brother’s small and dark waiting-room. 
It was neat, and not altogether destitute of comfort, 
but it was destitute of patients and had not the look 
of a place that had ever been overrun with them. A 
servant’s rap upon the door communicating with the 
office brought forth Blair, to whom Kendall made him- 
self known. 

The office was a large and dreary room, with a view 
of back yards. There was a broad couch in a corner 
with a pile of cheap sofa pillows, against which the 
doctor had probably been reclining. At the foot of the 
couch, and oddly propped against the back of a chair, 
was a single silken pillow beautifully embroidered. 
From a professional standpoint the room lacked many 
things that money can buy, and to Kendall, who was 
so far removed from the need of fees that he had 
almost forgotten the possibility of any doctor’s having 
to subsist upon them, the place spoke loudly of poverty. 
As for Blair himself, he matched his surroundings, for 
his mood was far from cheerful. 

What can I do for you. Doctor ? ” he asked in the 
tone of one who has ceased to expect good from any 
interview. 

“ Miss Miller, who is my patient at the hospital, 


ELSIE CHOOSES A CONFIDANT. 


143 


wishes to see you/’ said Kendall, “and I called to 
ask you to come over.” 

“ I hope a consultation isn’t necessary,” said Blair, 
with a faint smile. “ I understood that her chance 
was good.” 

“ It is in regard to Miss Maclane,” responded Ken- 
dall, with considerable embarrassment. 

Blair faintly groaned. 

“ I wish I had kept my mouth shut,” he said. “ Of 
course if I can do anything to please Miss Miller” he 
added hastily, “ I shall be delighted. I know her 
slightly, and she is a very charming girl. But really 
this matter of Miss Maclane is wearing my life out. 
Policemen, reporters, unidentified vagabonds” 

“And, last of all, a doctor,” added Kendall. 

“ have worried the flesh off my bones,” con- 
tinued Blair, without noticing the interruption. “ They 
insist that I shall identify Miss Maclane as the woman 
I saw. They present threats and bribes. They offer 
all sorts of ridiculous plans for bringing Miss Maclane 
and me together so that I may be sure of her. But I 
have seen Miss Maclane already, and I have said all 
that I have to say upon the subject.” 

“ You have not said that she was not the woman,” 
suggested Kendall. 

“ No, and I won’t,” responded Blair promptly. 
“Why should I?” 


144 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Unless you are sure,” said Kendall, “ you may feel 
like delaying a final statement, but I can’t help think- 
ing that your course takes little account of Miss Mac- 
lane’s welfare ; I might almost say of her rights. How- 
ever, I must not get excited about it.” 

“ You seem to take a considerable interest,” said 
Blair. You have known Miss Maclane for some 
years, I am told. But that is none of my business. 
What does Miss Miller wish me to do?” 

“ She believes that she can convince you that Miss 
Maclane is not the woman you saw,” replied Kendall. 

Blair was silent for some moments. 

“ I don’t see how that is possible,” he said at last, 
“ but I would be very glad ^ oblige her, or you, if 
I could. There is, however, such a thing as the truth, 
you know.” 

Kendall was beginning to feel painfully anxious. 
There seemed to be a strong probability that Blair was 
perfectly convinced in regard to this matter of identity, 
and that he was reserving his statement until the 
nature of the case should disclose itself. If Elsie 
should die, there was little chance that a man of Blair’s 
type would withhold his evidence, for in that event 
somebody would be directly accused, and a just per- 
son would feel that all the evidence should be brought 
forward. Blair’s present position was such that Ken- 
dall did not know how to attack it, and so he fell back 


ELSIE CHOOSES A CONFIDANT. 


145 


Upon the matter of his real errand. As to that there 
was no difficulty. Blair promised to call at the hos- 
pital within an hour. 

Having received this promise, Kendall returned at 
once and notified Elsie of the approaching visit. Her 
manner was very significant. She was evidently brac- 
ing herself for a considerable ordeal. There could 
be no doubt that she had determined to save Brenda 
from the annoyance to which she was being subjected, 
and from the much more serious trouble that might 
follow. As she had expressed a wish to speak with 
Dr. Blair a few minutes alone there could be but one 
inference — she intended to tell him something which 
she had withheld up to that time. As Blair was the 
first physician who had been called to attend her she 
could claim the right of a patient, and put him upon 
his professional honor not to disclose what she might 
say. Indeed, certain questions which she asked made 
Kendall sure that she had considered this phase of the 
situation. It was possible that she might intend to go 
to the length of confiding to Blair the actual facts 
of the case, for by naming the author of the crime she 
could most surely relieve Brenda from any further sus- 
picion. Even upon the supposition that Brenda had 
really gone to that house and had been seen by Blair 
he would probably consent to shield her from offensive 
publicity if he knew her to be entirely innocent. 


146 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Kendall was conscious of a strange, boyish feeling 
of discontent that Elsie should not have chosen him 
as the recipient of this confidence. He could under- 
stand that there might be reasons why she should tell 
Brenda everything, and, as to that, indeed, he had no 
positive knowledge that she had not already done so. 
Moreover, to have told him would have been merely to 
let another person into the secret, whatever it might 
be, since it was not he, but Blair, who had the power 
to check the attacks upon Brenda. Still, he could 
not help feeling isolated, the more because of his 
reflection that Brenda might already know all. 

From this youthful frame of mind he passed to one 
more mature and practical. It might be that Blair 
was not worthy of this confidence. Without pretend- 
ing to know what Elsie’s secret might be, Kendall 
surely did not wish it to be betrayed. All considera- 
tion of abstract justice had vanished in personal in- 
terest. He was for Elsie with a genuine loyalty, and 
Blair had not impressed him favorably. He seemed 
a morose and discontented man, with an unsatisfied 
craving for something, probably money, and he had 
not a perfectly honest eye. Supposing that Elsie’s 
secret involved Alden, and that Alden had really be-‘ 
come rich in a way invisible to his closest friends — 
well, in that case it might be that Dr. Blair would be 
able to afford a better office. 


ELSIE CHOOSES A CONFIDANT- 


147 


With these thoughts in mind Kendall ventured to 
caution Elsie against the evils incident to an unwise 
trust in the discretion and the promises of one's fel- 
low creatures, but Elsie seemed to have an excellent 
opinion of her own good judgment, as often happens 
with the young. 

When Blair appeared, Kendall mentioned to him 
that Elsie desired to see him alone for a few minutes, 
adding, she seems to have some communication 
which is in the highest degree confidential.” 

I shall treat whatever she says as a matter between 
doctor and patient,” replied Blair, somewhat too 
promptly, as Kendall thought. 

Nothing of importance occurred during the time 
when Brenda and Kendall were present with Blair 
in Elsie's room. It might have been one of the doc- 
tor’s regular professional calls. 

The private conference lasted not more than five 
minutes, and it produced no very notable effect upon 
Elsie, but Dr. Blair seemed to have received a con- 
siderable surprise. Kendall was far from satisfied with 
the man’s looks. He was not only agitated, but he 
had the air of one who is both scared and pleased, 
like a man who sees an opportunity the nature of 
which both attracts and frightens him. And the 
thought came to Kendall that this secret might affect 


148 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Brenda, whose father was very weak in the nerves 
and very strong in the pocket. 

On the face of the matter, however, it appeared that 
Elsie had achieved a notable success, for Blair said 
to Brenda: 

Miss Miller tells me that you are much disturbed 
by the absurd attempts to identify you with the so- 
called ‘ mysterious woman ^ in this unfortunate affair. 
I think I can put a stop to these stories.” 

** Was it for that that she asked you to come here ? ” 
demanded Brenda, who, by Elsie’s request, had not 
been informed in advance of this attempt. 

“ Oh, no ; it was merely incidental,” replied Blair, 
and my conclusion depends partly upon my having 
seen you again. Your word should, of course, have 
been enough for me, but I have not taken a proper 
view of the seriousness of the matter. I shall now 
state positively that you are not the lady I saw.” 

“ I would prefer that you say nothing at all,” said 
Brenda after a brief interval of reflection. 

Blair showed his surprise. 

‘‘ I do not understand,” he said. Surely you wish 
me to speak the truth ? ” 

I was not aware that you made it a matter of 
conscience,” replied Brenda, slightly inclining her head 
by way of dismissal to Blair, who was upon the point 
of leaving the room. 


“THRIFT, HORATIO, THRIFT.” 


149 


CHAPTER XIV. 

^‘‘thrift, HORATIO, THRIFT.” 

The next morning's papers contained interviews 
with Dr. Blair in which he stated in the most positive 
manner that the mysterious woman was not Miss Mac- 
lane. This did not have the effect of taking Brenda en- 
tirely out of print, but it inspired all the newspaper 
writers with caution, for, though some of them were 
not able to believe that Blair was telling the truth, it 
was impossible to overlook the fact that he was the 
only witness. 

The most serious of the immediate results of this 
publication was experienced by Dr. Blair himself, 
about 10 o'clock in the forenoon, when he received a 
call from Captain Neale. The captain seemed not to 
be representing the department upon this occasion, for 
he was in the dress of a private citizen. Even his shoes 
were different from a policeman's characteristic foot- 
wear. As the apparel evidently was not worn for 
purposes of disguise, it might be assumed that Mr. 
Neale had come upon a personal errand. 


150 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


When admitted to Dr. Blair’s office, he first showed 
interest in all the doors opening from the room ; then 
he 'bestowed a moment’s attention upon some of the 
doctor’s effects which had been collected as if to be 
packed in a large trunk. 

Going away? ” inquired Neale. 

“ Move,” responded Blair. 

^‘What for?” 

“ You’ve succeeded in spoiling my practice around 
here,” was the reply. “ I am not more modest than 
other doctors, but the kind of conspicuousness which 
comes from having an uniformed policeman call at the 
house every ten minutes is not a good advertisement. 
So I have engaged other quarters.” 

‘‘ Where?” 

“ I would like to tell you that it’s none of your busi- 
ness,” said Blair, but that wouldn’t prevent you from 
finding out. I’m going up town.” 

And he gave the address, which the captain osten- 
tatiously noted down. Having done this, he looked 
Blair in the eye and said: 

I don’t know whether you’re going or not.” 

“ Make your mind easy,” replied the doctor. “ I 
am. 

“You’re an important witness in this case,” said 
the captain, “ and I want you where I can get my hands 
on you.” 


“ THRIFT, HORATIO, THRIFT.' 


** Well, I’m not going far.” 

The captain screwed up his queer eyebrows in his 
own peculiar fashion. 

“ It’s my opinion,” said he, “ that you’re going to the 
House of Detention.” 

Blair looked uneasy, but he mustered a smile. 

“ The House of Detention is for the poor,” he said. 
“ It is for people who will stand being imprisoned six 
months or a year for nothing without making any fuss 
about it.” 

“ You’re poor enough, my friend,” replied the cap- 
tain, and I’ll see that you don’t make any fuss. I’ve 
got a story all fixed up that will keep you quiet.” 

Blair let the lid of the trunk fall heavily and then 
sat down on top of it. 

** Well, you needn’t tell me what it is,” he said. ** I’ll 
take your word for it that it’s a good one. In short, 
you intend to ruin me in this town.” 

The captain put his hand into his pocket in a way 
that made Blair nervous, but it was nothing more for- 
midable than a piece of chewing tobacco that appeared. 
Neale nodded slowly as he bit off a piece. 

“ From the beginning of this case,” said the doctor, 
“ I have been totally unable to understand your game. 
What is it? ” 

‘‘ My game,” replied the captain, is to take good 
care of Joseph Neale.” 


152 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Well/* said Blair, what have I done to prevent 
it?” 

“ Ever hear the story of the beggar who asked the 
professional charity man for a dime ? ” 

I don’t remember it,” said the doctor. 

“ The charity man said : * Go over on the other 

side of the street. I’m working this side.’ ” 

Blair appeared to ponder deeply upon the signifi- 
cance of this ancient tale in the present situation. 

** Look here,” said the captain suddenly. ** You saw 
Brenda Maclane coming out of that house, and you had 
sense enough to keep still until you found out where 
you stood. That was all right. You found out, right 
away, what kind of a father she had, and you knew 
that your information was worth money. Now, don’t 
jump. I’ve looked you up, and I’ve found out that 
you’re not above that sort of thing. Very well; few 
of us are, but when you found out that I was ‘ on ’ you 
ought to have done one of two things — quit or let me 
in.” 

Blair drummed on the trunk with his fingers. 

• I thought you were after Alden,” he said, 
j I’m after ’em both.” 

**Do you still believe there’s anything in Alden’s 
story of money?” queried Blair, eyeing the other 
shrewdly. 

Neale nodded emphatically. 


THRIFT, HORATIO, THRIFT. 


153 


“ But we'll leave that for a minute,” he said. “In 
the matter of Maclane I let you go on, merely showing 
you that I was keeping close track. I didn't suppose 
you'd jump so quick.” 

‘‘ What do you mean ? ” 

The captain shook a big forefinger in Blair's face. 

*‘You went to Maclane's house last evening,” he 
said. ‘‘ Then you gave out that interview.” And the 
big forefinger came very close to Blair's nose as the 
captain added, '' How much did you get ? ' 

Blair's lean and deeply lined face was suddenly 
moistened with perspiration. He sprang up sidewise 
from the trunk and walked around the far end of the 
table. 

** This is getting personal,” he said at last, with a 
nervous laugh that scarcely passed beyond a contortion 
of the lips. 

I'll make it personal for you, my friend,” he said. 
“ In fact, I'll land you behind the bars before I'm done 
with you. This is blackmail.” 

Blair laughed aloud. 

“ Blackmail is a dreadful sin,” he said, ** and nobody 
knows it better than you do.” 

Neale did not see fit to reply. He watched Blair 
carefully as the latter paced up and down gnawing 
his lips. 


154 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ Captain,” said the doctor, pausing suddenly and 
facing about, “ how much money can you raise ? ” 

Neale's eyebrows took the shape of inverted V’s, 
and beneath them his eyes looked like dots because 
of the contraction in the corners. 

“ What are you trying to get at ? ” he demanded. 
‘‘You mean something. What is it?” 

A sudden shivering seized Blair, so that his jaws 
could be seen to shake. Indeed they could be heard. 
He crossed to a locker on the wall, from which he took 
a small bottle containing a thick and dark fluid. This 
he raised to his lips, shuddering at the taste of it. But 
he seemed to be benefited in the matter of self com- 
mand. 

“Nerve medicine?” said Neale. “I don't think 
you need it.” 

“ You told me,” replied Blair slowly, “ that I ought 
to quit or let you in. I've decided to do the latter.” 

“ Right ! ” said the captain, with emphasis. “ How 
much did you get? ” 

“ The little money that I got from Maclane doesn't 
amount to anything,” responded Blair. “ I got some- 
thing better.” 

Neale stretched out his hand with a quick motion 
and laid it upon Blair's shoulder, to that individual's 
great surprise, for he thought himself far out of reach. 
They stared at each other with equal intensity. 



THEN HE LOOKED AT NEALE, HOLDING THE PEN TOWARD HIM 

Page ijg. 







“THRIFT, HORATIO, THRIFT.’ 


155 


Can you be square? ” said Blair, as if he was con- 
sulting an oracle and not the man at whom he was 
looking. “ Is there any way to make you ? I believe 
there is. And you’ve got the money, too.” 

‘‘ I’ve always got plenty of money for a good thing,” 
said Neale. ‘‘ Now, speak up. Did Alden tell Mac- 
lane? ” 

Blair shook off the hand upon his shoulder by the 
exercise of great agility, and then he strode across the 
room to a desk, from which he took a small blankbook 
and a stylographic pen. He opened the book upon the 
table and wrote his name on the first page, with a word 
or two after it; then he looked at Neale, holding the 
pen toward him. The captain nodded, and he also 
wrote in the book. Upon the page there then appeared 
this: 

Arthur Gordon Blair, 


Joseph Neale, 


Equal Partners. 


** My friend,” said the captain, ** you ask me if I can 
be square. Well, there ain’t nobody that can be 
squarer than what I can, and you’ll find that out if you 
stick to me and don’t try to get funny nor play no 
tricks.” 

If Blair’s acquaintance with Neale had been more 
intimate, he would have recognized sincerity in this 
redundancy of negatives. The reporters who have 
followed Neale’s career assert that he once put seven 


156 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


into one short sentence while engaged in denouncing 
a certain well known reformer. As a rule, however, his 
language was not grossly inaccurate. In this in- 
stance it was the ring of the words that appealed to 
Blair. He took up the book and wrote upon the page 
that bore the names, his position being such that the 
captain could not see what was set down. 

Now, my esteemed business associate,^’ said 
Blair, laying down the book, ‘‘ this is the English of 
the matter — Alden has told Maclane where he was 
that afternoon and Maclane has told me. I didn’t go 
up there to get the secret; I went for a little cold 
money. Circumstances had made it agreeable to me 
to put Miss Maclane out of this case, and as I was 
going to do it anyhow it occurred to me that I might 
as well be paid for it.” 

‘‘ It is a pleasure to be in business with a man like 
you,” said Neale, with a grin. “ How much was the 
touch?” 

Only $2,000,” replied Blair. ‘‘ It is a loan. I told 
him a pitiful story of misfortune and mentioned that 
I was being hounded by the police. Well, he’s had a 
little of that himself. He sympathized with me, and 
when I said I wanted to move, take a better office and 
all that, he very kindly consented to help me out. As 
to his daughter, I told him frankly that I believed she 
.was the woman I had seen, but that I had no idea she 


“ THRIFT, HORATIO, THRIFT.” 


157 


was directly concerned in the crime. I believed that 
she had gone to that house, had seen Alden there and 
that she knew him to be guilty ; in short, that she was 
Alden's accessory after the fact, making them joint 
holders of the secret and ” 

“ Equal partners, as we are,’’ said Neale. 

“ Precisely,” was the reply. “ Such being the case, 
I could not become a third partner. In brief, I 
wouldn’t give out that interview which you saw in the 
papers this morning until I was sure Alden was in- 
nocent.” 

Clever rascal ! ” said Neale. 

“ It was a sudden inspiration with me. I’ll admit,” 
responded Blair, “ but it worked. Of course I was a 
long while getting at the facts, for at first he wanted 
me to take his word, which I gently but firmly declined 
to do. Then, in the strictest confidence, he told me 
what I’m going to tell you now. 

“ This is a big thing,” he continued, his face sud- 
denly growing pale. “ I’m afraid you can’t raise the 
money to swing it, for it can’t be done without money. 
That’s why I’m laying myself open to you. It had to 
be somebody, and the devil sent you in.” 

I’m obliged to him,” said Neale. Go on.” 

“ Mr. Alden spent the critical time that afternoon,” 
said Blair, '' in the office of a gentleman named Mar- 
cellus Hobson. Ever hear of him ? ” 


158 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ Lawyer? 

One of the smartest trust lawyers in this country 
and a man with millions,” said Blair. And this is 
what Alden was doing there : He has organized a com- 
bination of the companies in his line of business.” 

“ Alden has ? ” exclaimed Neale, amazed. 

“ Yes, sir,” responded Blair. “ That man Alden, the 
head of a little, tottering concern that is on the edge 
of bankruptcy, has got all the big fellows in line, and 
he stands to win millions in the closing of the deal. 
It’s pouring money into this deal that has put his own 
business where it is. He must win now or go to total 
ruin.” 

“ Well, what’s going to stop him? ” demanded Neale 
eagerly. “ Where do we come in ? ” 

He’s rounded them all up except the Holbein 
Manufacturing Company of Newark,” said Blair. 
“ Without that company in, the thing breaks and Alden 
goes to smash. But on the day when he sent that note 
to Miss Miller, on the day when she was stabbed, Al- 
den got a verbal agreement with the president of the 
Holbein company which practically clinched the thing. 
It clinched it except for just one chance — there’s an 
option out on the Holbein business. Some time ago 
a combination was made to buy the works, and a legal 
option was taken. The price is $600,000, of which 
one-third must be paid in cash four days from this 


THRIFT, HORATIO, THRIFT. 


159 


present date or the option is forfeited. It will be for- 
feited. John Y. Bowen, the banker, who was at the 
head of the combination, has died, and the whole thing 
has fallen through. The option is in the hands of 
Bowen’s son, who has been trying to push the thing 
along, but has now dropped it. We must buy that 
option.” 

“ Why doesn’t Alden buy it ? ” 

“ He is making a gamble. If the option lapses, he 
can get the concern for half a million. The Holbein 
people know nothing of the trust scheme. They think 
Alden merely represents capital seeking an investment. 
They are all old men in the company and willing to sell 
out. But if new capital and new men get hold of the 
concern it can be forced into Alden’s trust on a valua- 
tion of a clean million, and there’s a profit of $400,000 
for us.” 

Neale twisted a newspaper into rags with his 
gigantic hands. 

“ This thing needs investigating,” he said, and 
there isn’t much time.” 

“Investigating?” echoed Blair. “If old Duncan 
Maclane says it’s all right, do you suppose there’s any 
doubt about it ? ” 

“Why doesn’t he buy in?” queried Neale and then 
answered his own question. “ I see. He can’t. He’s 
got it confidential from Alden. It wouldn’t do for him 


i6o 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


to show up with the property. But you’re talking big 
money, and we mustn’t go too fast.” 

“ Don’t you see,” said Blair, speaking slowly, but in 
a voice thick with excitement, that all we’ve 
got to do is to buy the option? Show up with 
that on the day before it expires, and you’ll never have 
to put up the $200,000 of purchase money. You’ll only 
have to prove that you can. Alden will have to settle 
at your own figures. If he does not, his game is up. 
By heavens, we can take more than half the profits of 
this transaction right out of his hands.”. 

But where’ll Alden get the money to settle with 
us ? ” demanded the captain. “ We can’t take no 
promises.” 

‘That option closes the deal,” said Blair. “ With the 
deal closed, Alden can command all the money he 
wants, for the thing will go right into the hands of a 
trust company to be financed.” 

“ Then why hasn’t Alden bought the option him- 
self? You say it’s a gamble” 

“ Not altogether that. Young Bowen, so Maclane 
said, hates Alden and has a suspicion of what’s up. 
He has turned down certain parties because he sus- 
pected Alden was back of them. But you can bring 
him to terms. All he’ll want to know is that you don’t 
represent Alden.” 

“ If it’s old John Y. Bowen’s son,” said Neale, with 


“THRIFT, HORATIO, THRIFT.” i6i 

a smile, ** I reckon I can fetch him. I happen to have 
a hitch or two there. He^s a pretty lively boy.” 

‘‘ Then the thing is as good as done,” responded 
Blair. 

Neale took a turn around the room. 

“ I’ll go and see Bowen this afternoon,” he said, 

and if this thing works I’ll make Alden holler. I’m 
no friend of his after that little affair the other day. 
This will cut that honeymoon journey of his down a 
trifle. I’m thinking, when little Elsie Miller gets well. 
By the way, Blair, you owe me a thousand.” 

Blair took an enormous, ragged pocketbook from the 
inside of his waistcoat and paid the money. Then he 
replaced the wallet and showed Neale the additional 
writing that he had put into the blankbook. Above 
the partnership agreement was this : 

For the purchase of the Holbein Manufacturing company 
and further operations on information furnished by A. G. B. 

I don’t see how you happen to be poor,” said 
Neale, regarding the other genially. 

Blair ground his hands together. 

It’s the start,” he said, “ The cursed money to 
make the first move. I never could get these ten talons 
on it.” 

“ There’s something in that,” rejoined Neale. “ I 
hope you’ve got a safe place for that book. I shouldn’t 
care to have it printed in the newspapers after this 


162 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


game is over. Tve got a pretty strong pull, but it 
won’t stand everything.” 

Blair went back to the desk, which was a heavy, 
old fashioned affair, and locked up the book in one 
of the drawers. 

And now, my friend,” said Neale, “ one final word. 
If you play any games with me. I’ll do a trick with 
you that will wind you up. I have it on the quiet that 
this Miller girl is going to die. Now, I’ve been turn- 
ing up a little evidence, making most of it myself out 
of the raw goods, of course, and I can make evidence 
that would hang a man for a murder committed before 
he was born. How would you like to have me figure 
you out as the man that did this deed ? ” 

The breath went out of Blair’s body as if some one 
had struck him in the region of his solar plexus. 

You’re crazy ! ” he gasped. 

Neale laughed softly. 

I went through her trunk,” he said, ** and got 
some notes that you wrote to her awhile ago. It isn’t 
generally known that you were so well acquainted.” 

“ Isn’t generally known ? ” echoed Blair. Why 
not? I lived in that house for awhile. Certainly I 
knew her and took her out to dinner a few times. 
But, holy heavens, why should I want to kill her ? ” 

“ Well,’^ said Neale, there’s the money.” 

‘ Nonsense! You know where the money went. 


“THRIFT, HORATIO, THRIFT.” 


163 


and you know who committed this crime.” 

“Perhaps I do,” responded Neale, with a grin; 
“ but, at any rate, please remember that I have acted in 
your interests throughout.” 

Blair took him by the topmost button of his sack 
coat. 

“ In the interests of Joseph Neale,” he said. “ My 
interests and those of justice haven’t bothered you 
much. Why, this case reminds me of the old college 
football games twenty years ago. Somebody kicked 
the ball once, and then the boys began to fight, and 
nobody paid any attention to the ball after that. Usu- 
ally some mucker from East Cambridge stole it, and 
the loss wasn’t discovered till after the game was 
over.” 

“ The football being the criminal, eh,” said Neale, 
“just nominally a part of the proceedings? Well, 
there may be something in what you say.” 

And he grinned serenely as he walked backward 
toward the door. 


1 64 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER XV. 

MR. Robinson's message. 

During the time when Dr. Blair and Captain Neale 
were concluding their small matter of business De- 
tective Elmendorf was waiting at Alden’s office, hav- 
ing reason to believe that he would make a flying visit 
there during the forenoon. This expectation was 
realized, for Alden entered hurriedly about ii o'clock. 

He greeted Elmendorf in very friendly fashion, the 
detective meanwhile assuming a somewhat apologetic 
air. 

“ I hate to bother you,” he said, ** about my troubles 
when you certainly have plenty of your own, but there 
is a little matter, not connected with this case at all, 
that you can help me about if you feel like it — at least 
I think you can.” 

“ With all the pleasure in life,” responded Alden. 
“ I feel like helping everybody, with one exception. 

And as he spoke the last words, his hand, that had 
been resting upon the back of a chair, closed with a 
sudden, convulsive movement and ripped one of the 
wooden rungs out of its fastenings. 


MR. ROBINSON’S MESSAGE. 165 

Elmendorf slowly crossed the room and examined 
the break in the chair. 

'' If you got hold of the gentleman in question,” 
said he, “I think he would never come to trial. By 
the way, I am pleased to learn that Miss Miller is do- 
ing well this morning.” 

Alden tapped his broken chair as if it had repre- 
sented the individual to whom Elmendorf had vaguely 
referred. 

‘‘ That doesn’t let him out, however,” he said. But 
tell me what I can do for you.” 

“ Did you have some dealings at one time with a 
firm of the name of Howard & Bain?” 

“ I believe I did,” replied Alden. “ They failed and 
skipped.” 

“ Have you any documents bearing the firm’s sig- 
nature by either partner ? ” asked Elmendorf. 

Yes ; I have one,” said Alden, “ but I don’t know 
just where it is. I’ll look through my desk. John ” 
— addressing Robinson, who sat in his usual place — 
“ do you know where that contract is ? ” 

Robinson replied in the negative, and Alden pulled 
out the contents of some drawers and pigeonholes in 
a vain search. Finally he came to one little drawer 
which Mr. Elmendorf had once opened. 

Here’s the contract,” he said, and — Hello, here’s 
something of yours, John.” 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


1 66 

And he tossed an envelope across to Robinson’s desk. 
Robinson glanced at it hastily and put it into his 
pocket. Elmendorf appeared to be busy with the old 
contract which Alden had handed to him, and, having 
received permission to keep it for a few days, he put 
the useless document into his pocket. 

“ Jack,” said Alden, “ will you ask Mr. Willett to 
come in here ? ” 

Willett was the firm’s accountant. Robinson walked 
toward the door, and as he did so Elmendorf half rose 
from his chair and then sat down again. The ac- 
countant presently appeared. He received some mem- 
oranda from Alden and went out again. There was 
an interval of silence, while Elmendorf devoted him- 
self to the enjoyment of a large cigar and Alden jotted 
down figures on a slip of paper. 

“ Wonder what’s become of Robinson,” said Alden 
at last. 

The detective offered no opinion upon this point, 
and Alden stepped to the door and glanced into the 
large room. Elmendorf heard some one say in re- 
sponse to a question that Robinson had gone out. Al- 
den seemed annoyed as he returned to his desk, where 
he hastily wrote a note to Robinson. 

“ Now,” he said, “ I’m going up town.” 

“St. Winifred’s?” queried Elmendorf. 

“ I shall call there about i o’clock.” 


MR. ROBINSON’S MESSAGE. 


167 


“If you’ll go over to the As tor House with me,” 
said Elmendorf, “ and wait about three minutes while 
I transact a little business, I’ll go up with you, and 
we can talk on the way. There are a few questions 
that I’d like to ask after I’ve straightened them out in 
my own mind a bit.” 

Alden saw no objection to this arrangement, and so 
they walked over to the old hotel together. Elmen- 
dorf glanced at his watch as they entered and then 
approached the attendant in charge of the telephone 
booths in the hall. 

“ There will be a call for Mr. Elmendorf from Phil- 
adelphia in about a minute,” he said. “ I am the man.” 

The call came within the interval stated, and Elmen- 
dorf entered the booth, where he gave the customary 
greeting, which was returned in a familiar voice. 

“ I’ve got track of your man over here,” said the 
voice. “ R. appears to be his real name ; didn’t sup- 
pose it was. He was in trouble over here a little more 
than a year ago and had to get out of town ; borrowed 
some money on bogus security.” And the voice fur- 
nished a few details of the transaction. “ He has been 
trying to straighten it out lately and is not in danger 
of arrest here; has been over several times. There 
are rumors that he got into similar trouble in Wash- 
ington, but I’m not down to that yet. One man who 
knows him here thinks he had letters from a girl named 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


l68 

Miller; doesn't know whether she was on the stage 
or anything about her, in fact; isn't even sure of the 
name, but I'm going to get more information about 
that. As to other inquiries, nothing as yet, but will 
write you this evening." 

All right," responded Elmendorf. Hustle, old 
man. This thing is getting pretty ripe over here. 
And, remember, this is personal business; it isn't of- 
ficial. I may want to cover the whole matter up." 

The man is no good, I guess," said the voice. 

“ I don't care anything about the man," rejoined 
Elmendorf, “ or the other one either. It's the girl 
I’m interested in. Nothing is too good for her or ever 
was, and if the worst comes I want to be in a position 
to wring somebody's neck and wring it hard. I don't 
know whose it will be yet. How about the records ? " 

** Nothing in sight." 

“Well, there must be, somewhere. Mr. Tantalus 
has got to be accounted for. Much obliged to you. 
Goodby." 

Elmendorf rejoined Alden, who in the meantime 
had engaged a hansom. 

“ Your secretary, Robinson, seems to be a handy 
man," said Elmendorf after some desultory conver- 
sation. 

“He’s very obliging," replied Alden. 

“ Perfectly honest, I suppose ? " 


MR. ROBINSON’S MESSAGE. 


169 

^‘Never knew anything to the contrary/’ said Al- 
den. “ He doesn’t handle any money.” 

“ He handled $500 the other day,” suggested El- 
mendorf. 

“ But he didn’t know it,” replied Alden. I don’t 
mean to imply anything against Robinson, but I know 
very little about him, and I never trust a man any 
further than I know him. I never trust a man with 
money unless I know the money side of him. It is 
possible to be a good, straight fellow about everything 
else and have a weakness there.” 

“ I should think you ought to be a pretty good 
business man,” said Elmendorf. 

“ I suffer from the same trouble that you have,” 
replied Alden ; “ I’m too honest.” 

** There’s nothing honest about me,” protested El- 
mendorf gloomily. ‘‘ It’s my luck ; I never have a 
chance. By the way,” he added, changing his tone, 
“ Robinson knew Miss Miller quite well, didn’t he ? ” 

“Only through me,” answered Alden. “I used to 
get him to take messages to her house quite often. 
It was convenient ; he lived near by.” 

“ Yes,” said Elmendorf. “ They told me at the house 
that he came quite often. Do you remember the first 
note with her name on it that you ever gave him? 
Well, I happen to know that he took it to your book- 
keeper, Willett, and asked who Miss Miller was. He 


170 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


seemed to be quite interested. Afterward he told Wil- 
lett that he was mistaken in supposing that he knew 
Miss Miller. It was another girl of the same name.” 

“If you are trying to work Jack Robinson into this 
case,” said Alden, “ you are a long way off the track.” 

Elmendorf protested that he had no such intention, 
adding that he had no rational theory of the case and 
never expected to have one. 

When they entered St. Winifred’s, they met Dr. 
Kendall, who had just come from a visit to Elsie. He 
led them into his own room. 

“ I’m sorry to tell you,” he said to Alden, “ that 
Miss Miller is not quite so well just now. I wouldn’t 
advise seeing her. Mr. Robinson delivered your mes- 
sage.” 

“ What message ? When ? ” demanded Alden. 

“ He was here about half an hour ago,” said Kendall, 
with increasing alarm as he noted the manner of the 
others. “ He said it was something very important 
from you, and after consulting with Miss Maclane I 
let him speak with Miss Miller in private for a few 
minutes. I thought she seemed somewhat disturbed 
afterward, but she told us that the matter was of small 
consequence.” 

“ I know nothing whatever about it,” exclaimed 
Alden. “ I did not send him here and had no idea 
he was coming.” 


MR. ROBINSON’S MESSAGE. 


171 


He turned to Elmendorf with a sharply questioning 
glance. 

“Well, you can search me” said the detective. 

“ You mean that you know nothing about it ? '' asked 
Kendall anxiously. 

“Less than nothing,” responded Elmendorf, “and 
I’m giving you straight goods, too.” 

There was a knock at Kendall’s door, and he ad- 
mitted a nurse, who said that Miss Maclane wished 
to see him. He did not wait to speak a single word, 
but hurried away. Alden tried to get an explanation 
from the nurse, but she professed to have none. 

For nearly an hour the two men waited with im- 
patience, which finally passed Alden’s power of en- 
durance. 

“ I must get some word from her,” he said after 
much pacing of the floor. “ There must be serious 
danger or he would not stay so long.” 

Elmendorf pointed out the obvious possibility that 
Kendall might long since have answered Miss Mac- 
lane’s summons and have gone upon any of a hundred 
other duties, but Alden would not be thus quieted. 
He went out to the office to ask in what way he could 
communicate with the doctor, and within a minute 
after his departure Kendall entered the room. 

He had a large glass jar in his hand which seemed 


172 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


to contain milk. This he set down upon the table 
and immediately touched an electric button. 

** How is she ? ” asked Elmendorf in a tone betray- 
ing the most earnest solicitude. 

Better, better,” replied Kendall. “ I think there’s 
no longer any danger. Where is Mr. Alden ? ” 

“ No longer any danger ! ” exclaimed Elmendorf, 
ignoring the question. ^‘Has there been any ? ” 

'' Well,” said Kendall, she fainted again.” 

Again!” 

“ The first time was just before you came up,” said 
Kendall. Don’t say anything about this. We had 
just given her a little luncheon, and I thought perhaps 
she might have had some small stomach trouble; op- 
presses the heart sometimes, you know. But I don’t 
like this second attack. Heart failure after the injury 
and the nervous exhaustion wouldn’t be the most un- 
likely thing in the world, you know. Ah! Come 
here, George.” 

The last words were addressed to a youth in uni- 
form who had answered the doctor’s ring. Kendall 
gave him some money and whispered to him near the 
door. When he turned, as George departed, he saw 
Elmendorf standing rigid, with his blue eyes unusually 
wide open. 

What do you want of two white mice ? ” he de- 
manded. 


MR. ROBINSON’S MESSAGE. 


173 


** Really, now ’’ — Kendall began. 

“ Look here,” interrupted Elmendorf. “If there's 
anything of that kind going on, I’m the man you 
need. Don’t hide anything from me; for the little 
girl’s sake, don’t do it, doctor.” 

Kendall bit his lips and hesitated. Then he said 
suddenly, as steps w«re heard in the hall: 

“ Get him out of here and come back.” 

Alden entered and stopped short, in his own pecu- 
liar fashion, with his eyes on the doctor. 

“ It’s all right,” said Kendall. “ Miss Miller showed 
some indications of weakness, but is doing nicely now. 
I should think you might see her about 5 o’clock. 

“ Well, doctor, I’m glad everything’s all right,” said 
Elmendorf. “ I began to be anxious, you were so 
long away. But what you’ve said has made me feel 
easy again, and so I think the best thing that Mr. 
Alden and I can do is to try to get some light on 
Mr. Robinson’s strange conduct. The man may have 
struck some kind of a clew and have rushed right off 
to verify it without waiting to consult anybody.” 

“ I didn’t think of that,” responded Alden. “It may 
be that you’ve found the explanation.” 

“ I would suggest that you go to his house,” said 
Elmendorf. “ Meanwhile I’ll telephone to your office 
and one or two other places and see if I can get track 
of him. But the likeliest place is his house. Wait 


174 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


there for me. I’ll join you before three.” 

This arrangement was agreed upon, and the two 
men went out together. Elmendorf was busy with 
the telephone for half an hour, but he failed to ex- 
tract valuable information from any person with whom 
he talked, although the chief of the detective bureau 
was one of them. 

Returning to the hospital, he went at once to Ken- 
dall’s room. In answer to his rap and the sound of 
his voice the door was unlocked and he was admitted. 
In passing he glanced searchingly at Kendall’s face, 
which wore an expression of extreme anxiety; then 
he advanced to the table in the middle of the room, 
from which he lifted a newspaper, thus revealing the 
bodies of two little white mice. 

Elmendorf regarded them with a look of horror. 

I ‘‘ Good Lord! ” he gasped. “ You don’t mean it? ” 

Kendall nodded. Then he sat down and rested his 
head on his hands for a few seconds, while Elmendorf 
gathered breath and heart for the next question. 

“What was in the jar — milk?” 

“ No,” replied Kendall. “ It is a kind of liquid 
food preparation. The basis of it is milk; but, un- 
fortunately,” he added, looking up at the detective, “ it 
will keep.” 

“ Been in the room several days, you mean ? ” said 
Elmendorf. “ If it was ordinary milk that had been 


MR. ROBINSON’S MESSAGE. 


175 


dosed, we could narrow it down to a few hours. 
But this stuff — why, absolutely everybody connected 
with the case has had a chance at it.” 

How shall I tell her ? ” muttered Kendall. 

“ Her?” 

The doctor gave a nervous start. 

“ Miss Maclane,” he said. “This will be a hard 
story for her to hear.” 

“ You are right,” replied Elmendorf, “after all the 
care she’s taken, the devotion she’s shown to that poor 
child, who was nothing to her — worse than nothing, 
in fact — an enemy, you might say.” 

“ Now, look here ” exclaimed Kendall hoarsely 

as he got upon his feet. 

“ No, no ! ” cried Elmendorf. “ I don’t mean to 
accuse her. That would be absurd. We mustn’t waste 
time. What was the poison ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” replied Kendall. “ Of course there 
was no time for analysis. That’s why I tried it on 
these small animals. It’s some kind of a heart de- 
pressant — the very thing to use in a case of this kind, 
where the condition is one of weakness and especially 
where there is an injury in the region of the organ.” 

“ But didn’t these mice show any symptoms that 
you could recognize ? ” asked Elmendorf. 

“ No ; nothing definite. I could name several poi- 
sons that would answer all the requirements. It isn’t 


176 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


necessary to know immediately. The treatment would 
be the same in any case. And the danger is over, I 
believe.’^ 

“ Unless it’s somewhere else,” said Elmendorf ; ‘'in 
her medicines, perhaps.” 

“ That wouldn’t be possible without assuming some- 
thing that can’t be assumed — not in my presence, at 
any rate.” 

" You mean that Miss Maclane ” 

" Precisely,” said Kendall. " And as there can be 
no thought of such a thing we conclude that this in- 
fernal thing” — and he tapped the jar with his knuckles 
— " which was handy for everybody, wide mouthed and 
all that — Oh, I have been an idiot ! ” 

" She’s been having this right along,” said Elmen- 
dorf. “ That might indicate ” 

“ Nothing until we know just what the stuff is and 
how much of it we have to deal with,” replied Ken- 
dall. " The effects observed may come from what she 
ate this noon or be the general result of small, re- 
peated doses.” 

“ There’s one thing,” said Elmendorf with decision 
— " this villainous act must have been done by some- 
body who knew that the food was there, by some one 

who had been in the room several times ” 

" Don’t ! ” groaned Kendall. “ By heavens, I can’t 
bear to think of it ! I like Alden. I can’t believe this 


MR. ROBINSON’S MESSAGE. 


177 


of him. And — and she loves him ; she loves him just 
as much now as ever.” 

“ Miss Maclane ? ” said Elmendorf. “My friend, I 
don’t believe it.” 

Kendall looked up at him with a blank stare and 
shook his head. 


178 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

ELSIE PERPETRATES A JEST. 

“ They say/’ remarked Elsie, ‘‘ that people always 
feel particularly well just before they die. Do you 
remember Bernhardt in ‘ Camille,’ the very last words 
before she dies in Armand’s arms : ‘ I shall live ! Ah, 
how well I feel ! ’ How I cried when she said that ! 
And then Gaston says, * She sleeps.’ Isn’t that a 
lovely scene?” 

‘‘ As it came to your mind at this moment,” said 
Brenda, I joyfully infer that you are feeling very 
much better.” 

“ You must think I am silly to talk so much about 
dying,” said Elsie. I am soggy with sentimentality.” 

“You have mentioned it on just four occasions,” 
said Brenda, “ including this, but it seems often to us 
because we don’t wish to lose you, and to yourself, 
because really and truly you don’t wish to die. On 
the whole, you have been as cheerful as any girl could 
possibly be under the circumstances, and as for your 


ELSIE PERPETRATES A JEST. 


179 


sentimentality, my dear, I’d give the world to have 
some of it myself.” 

'' I was going to say,” continued Elsie, '' that my 
motive for continually harping on it is that you may 
know I am not afraid, and afterward you may tell 
Mr. Alden.” 

This exchange of pleasantries upon a cheerful sub- 
ject occurred during the time when Kendall was ex- 
perimenting with the white mice. 

** I must have been pretty near it the last time,” 
said Elsie. “It was double. I scarcely knew what 
was the matter when it began, even though I’d fainted 
such a little while before. It was like drifting, drift- 
ing away. You are surprised. You think you must 
stop, and before you really have time to be frightened 
you are gone. But I waked just for a second — just 
long enough to remember and realize; then down, 
down, down, sideways to the left there, slipping away 
from the room and the light. The last was a sensa- 
tion that they were lowering me into the ground. But 
I’m going to be cremated. You’ve promised me that, 
Brenda.” 

Then, catching the expression of amused horror — 
if that can be — on Brenda’s face, she laughed with the 
most delicious and clear sound, like the singing of 
birds. 


i8o 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ Oh, but it hurts to laugh,” she said. “ You mustn’t 
make me do it.” 

“ I ? ” cried Brenda. You are the first that ever ac- 
cused me of being amusing.” 

Do you know,” said Elsie, “ that of the two of 
us you’re the blue one? It’s much more cheerful to 
talk about dying than to * roast ’ oneself as you do.” 

‘‘ Roasting is popularly supposed to be one step 
beyond dying,” replied Brenda. “ But I suppose the 
roasting you mean is the saying of uncomplimentary 
things. My child, I can’t help it ; I suffer by contrast.” 

“With me?” cried Elsie. “Now you really are 
amusing. If I had your hair and eyes! Well, that’s 
absurd, of course. But do you know I lie here imi- 
tating your ways, your calm, gentle, sweet way of 
doing things? I’m studying you, Brenda, and if I 
were to play a society part again, you’d see! This 
is the way you say: ^Good morning. Dr. Kendall. 
^ ^ ^ Ah, thank you so much. * * * Shall we 
see you again soon? * ♦ * Goodby.’ You make 
all the little things mean something. That’s dignity, 
personality. I haven’t any more than a blade of grass, 
but I’m gaining on it. If I live another week, I shall 
die and go to Daniel Frohman’s No. i company in- 
stead of to heaven. I’d rather.” 

“ Do I speak like that when I address Dr. Kendall ? ” 


ELSIE PERPETRATES A JEST. l8i 

said Brenda, with a slight access of color. ‘‘ Well, it 
may be so. You are very clever, my dear.” 

“ This is the way you hold your arms when you 
walk,” said Elsie. “Isn’t that pretty? Of course I 
can’t do it very well lying down, but see the fingers 
and the ease of the wrist. Were you taught to do 
that?” 

“ I used to have a governess who was crazy on 
Delsarte,” replied Brenda. “But she presently went 
crazy on all other subjects also, and we had to send 
the poor thing to an institution. I was not aware of 
my debt to her.” 

“ You owe her a great deal,” said Elsie. “ I wish 
I’d had a lunatic of that kind in my family. I couldn’t 
afford to have much teaching. Of course I had some, 
but when I found what my mother was enduring in 
order to pay for it — well, I took an engagement with 
the first thing that came along. And it was a barn- 
storming crew! We gave six plays a week, and I 
had to learn a long part in every one of them. The 
second Monday, in the afternoon, the leading lady 
came into my room and found me huddled up on the 
floor in the corner gibbering — just gibbering, that was 
all — words out of all the plays, as she told me after- 
ward, all jumbled together, and I was cross eyed with 
sitting up all night studying under little flickering gas 
jets. Yes, that’s the way she found me, and the room 


i 82 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


was as cold as a barn, too. I had the bed quilt wrapped 
around my shoulders and my arm through a hole in 
it. 

“ The leading lady yelled to the juvenile man, and 
he really was juvenile — about i8, as I remember. She 
said, ' Go get a glass of brandy! ’ The juvenile man 
went down to the bar and came back with a tumbler 
solid full. He had to carry it carefully in order to 
keep from spilling any. The leading lady was a tem- 
perance woman. She never touched a drop of wine, 
and, in fact, she was a regular straitlaced New England 
pilgrim, but somebody had told her once that brandy 
was good for the thing that I had — ‘white brain,’ we 
call it. The juvenile man didn’t know how much 
brandy a person ought to take, and I — well, I didn’t 
know anything. So I drank it all, and then I lay 
down on the bed, and the leading lady covered me 
with everything she could find, and pretty soon the 
bed got up and stood on the ceiling, and I didn’t care 
at all. 

“ When it became time to go to the theater (Brenda, 
it’s disgraceful, but I was so — so drunk that I couldn’t 
walk straight) the leading lady got me up and told 
the juvenile man to walk me around the block, and 
he walked me around about fifty times in the snow. 
We were in a little Minnesota town, and it had snowed 
for a week. When he took me to the theater I was 


ELSIE PERPETRATES A JEST. 


183 


perfectly sober, and I didn’t care for anything. I had 
no troubles whatever. I walked up to the stage man- 
ager, and I said cheerfully, “Well, what do we play 
to-night ? ’ He told me, and I couldn’t remember 
ever to have heard of it, but I got out my part and 
studied it while I was making up. 

“ When I went on, I knew about half of my first 
scene, which was the longest one I had in the play. 
But I didn’t care. I’d always been troubled with stage 
fright more or less, but not this time — not a fright. 
When I forgot, I waited calmly for the prompter, who 
was off left having a fit. By and by I had to go across 
right and sit down by a table. I knew I couldn’t hear 
the prompter there, so I walked over and got the 
table and dragged it clear across the stage, and the 
audience applauded because I did it so naturally. 

“ Then I went crazy, and what happened afterward 
I scarcely know. But when I came off after the 
thrilling climax of the scene I fell into the leading 
lady’s arms and she hugged me up tight. She said: 
‘ You never played so well as that before. You were 
like Julia Marlowe.’ And she kissed me on both 
cheeks. Julia Marlowe was my idol then, and I cried 
with heavenly joy on the leading lady’s neck. That’s 
all true, just as it happened, Brenda, and I never had 
stage fright afterward.” 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


184 

“ Poor little Elsie ! ” said Brenda, kissing her. “ It 
was a hard school where you were taught.’^ 

How nice it would be,’’ said Elsie after a pause, 
“ if a girl with all your money and real ambition should 
study for the stage! She ought to thrill the world. 
I’m sure that you could.” 

“ I have been on the amateur stage several times,” 
replied Brenda, with a smile, “and I studied faithfully 
beforehand, but nobody was thrilled. I was perfectly 
inanimate. Why, I sang a song in one little play, and 
a fellow among the players called it a xylophone solo 
because I was so utterly wooden.” 

“You shouldn’t say such things about yourself,” 
said Elsie. “ You sing beautifully. Oh, that dear 
little French lullaby! How many times did I make 
you sing that to me last night? You have so many 
accomplishments, and I can’t do anything, not even 
act. How could any mortal man fail to see the dif- 
ference between you and me ? ” 

“ My child,” said Brenda, “ no man can. Why, the 
brass knobs on the posts of this bed know the differ- 
ence between you and me — the vital essential differ- 
ence. They love you in their little brass hearts. Every- 
body loves you. Dr. Kendall, for a cold blooded sawyer 
of bones who could amputate my head without a trace 
of emotion, takes your hand with the eternal reverence 
of man for woman, and when he gives you pain I 


ELSIE PERPETRATES A JEST. 185 

can see his own heart shrink. But he treats me as 
if I were a gentleman whom he had met at the club.'’ 

Elsie opened her eyes so wide that they seemed to 
light the room as she stared at Brenda, whose cheeks 
were flushed by her unusual earnestness. 

“ I am glad to hear you speak like that," she said. 

Brenda rose and walked across to the window. Then 
she returned to the bed and took Elsie's hand. 

‘‘ I am going to open my heart to you," she said. 
“ It is not because Clarence Alden preferred you to 
me that I lost my self control that last day. I cared 
nothing for you, despised you ; I admitted no compar- 
ison. It was because, though the intensity of his own 
nature for a time deceived him, he never really loved 
me at all. Nobody ever loved me. I am called good 
looking, even a beauty, in the society columns of the 
papers, and I am so rich that I have attracted many 
men. But not one of them was able to present even 
a creditable counterfeit of love (though some of them 
could counterfeit almost anything else, from good 
breeding to the national currency), until Mr. Alden 
entered the lists. That's hardly fair to him; he was 
sincere, but mistaken. Elsie, this is a scandalous rev- 
elation, but you should have seen him kiss me ! Clar- 
ence Alden, the impetuous! Well, I once saw a big 
boy bump my little brother's nose against a snowball 
and it was something like that. I don't want to be 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


1 86 

different from other girls, Elsie. My heart is just as 
warm as any woman’s, and when Clarence Alden, the 
most frantic and furious of mankind, even after we 
were engaged used to shake hands with me this way 
when he said good night ” — and she took Elsie’s hand 
in the ridiculous manner of society — why, I suffered, 
that’s all.” 

She arose and took a turn across the room. 

“Yet I didn’t have at all the feeling that I have 
now,” she continued. “It was only that last day that 
I became enraged, mostly at myself. It is since I 
have come here, since I have known you, the most 
womanly of God’s creatures, that I have had some 
true comprehension of my own lack, some honest sor- 
row for it.” 

“ Only since you have been here,” said Elsie. 
“How remarkable! But, Brenda, it is sweet of you 
to talk this way to me, and I am so glad, so very glad ! 
How long have you known Dr. Kendall ? ” 

“ What a queer question 1 ” said Brenda. “ About 
two years, but we haven’t met a dozen times. By the 
way, he is going to be married.” 

“ He is going to be married ! ” exclaimed Elsie. 
“ To whom? ” 

“ I don’t know,” Brenda replied. “From something 
he said the other day, I judge there’s a difficulty. I 
don’t know the lady’s name.” 


ELSIE PERPETRATES A JEST. 


187 


Well/^ said Elsie, letting her head sink back on 
the pillow as one relieved, “ you will when it happens.’’ 

“ If you mean that he cares anything for me, you 
are quite mistaken,” said Brenda. “ His manner when 
he is in this room should show that. I am nothing — 
a piece of furniture. Do you know, it has inspired 
me with something like jealousy — jealousy merely of 
the difference between you and me, which is the theme 
we started with.” ^ 

“ ril show you what Dr. Kendall thinks of that dif- 
ference,” said Elsie. ^‘Wait till he comes in here 
again. I’ll suggest that you’re going away, and then 
you watch him. He’ll know that I’m going to stay 
till I’m carted away. But watch him.” 

You must not do it,” said Brenda. But Elsie in- 
sisted that she should, and they were still having a 
cheerful little quarrel about it when they were in- 
terrupted by Kendall’s familiar rap. 

The doctor entered, looking very serious, but his 
brow cleared at the sight of Elsie. 

Upon my word,” he said, approaching the bed, 
“ you are the miracle of our species.” 

He bent over the girl, looking into her eyes and then 
laying his fingers on her pulse. 

I never knew any human being react as you do,” 
he continued. ‘‘If remedies produced the same effect 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


1 88 

on all our race, doctoring would be easy. Your heart 
is pumping away like a steam fire-engine.’' 

‘‘ I am so well,” replied Elsie, ** that Brenda is think- 
ing of deserting me.” 

Kendall had been holding Elsie’s hand. He dropped 
it and slowly straightened his tall figure till he stood 
erect. The dead white mice seemed to be dancing 
before his eyes. 

“ You can’t mean it,” he said, and his face was blu- 
ish gray as he thought of the certain inference that 
Elmendorf would draw from Brenda’s departure at 
this time. “ Brenda ” — he began, “ I truly beg your 
pardon ” 

“ That is my name,” she said, and I shall always 
answer when you speak it.” 

I thank you from my heart,” said he. And — 
Brenda, you mustn’t go — not now. I can’t explain. 
I was taken unaware and may have said too much 
already. Upon my soul, I don’t know what I have 
said. But don’t leave us now ” 

In his excitement his voice broke in a queer little 
sob. 

'' I had no idea,” said Brenda, “ that my presence 
was so important.” 

“ I can’t think of anything earthly that is more im- 
portant than your presence here,” he said, with such 
impressive earnestness as would have carried convic- 


ELSIE PERPETRATES A JEST. 


189 


tion to any woman's heart. ‘‘ This must seem strange 
to you, this sudden outburst, but I am nervous, over- 
strained. You must pardon me. I cannot tell you all 
I mean ” 

Go on,” said Elsie. “ Don't mind me.” 

And she put her fingers into her ears. 

Then for the first time Kendall comprehended the 
preposterous construction of which his words were 
susceptible. His face suddenly blazed with color. 

We — we really need you,” he stammered, both 
of us. Tell me that you will stay.” 

I had no intention of going,” said Brenda in a 
strange and stifled voice. “ It was only Elsie's joke.” 

Thank heaven ! ” exclaimed Kendall, and he took 
both of Brenda's hands. ‘‘ I can't be sure of what 
you think I mean, but ” — and he threw back his head 
with a fine, strong air — whatever it is, I mean it from 
the bottom of my soul ! ” 

He still held her hands, but not at all in the society 
fashion which Brenda had recently deprecated. 

“ I have your promise ? ” said he. 

I can't be sure of what you mean,” she answered, 
smiling, but whatever it is you have it! ” 

They looked straight into each other's eyes for a 
moment. Then they laughed together like happy chil- 
dren. Kendall’s hands closed more tightly upon hers. 


190 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


He released them gently and inclined his head as he 
turned and left the room. 

‘‘ Well, considering that that was only a little joke,” 
said Elsie, ‘‘ I don’t think I ever saw so much for the 
money.” 

“What could the man have meant?” exclaimed 
Brenda. 

He probably meant,” said Elsie, ‘‘ that you were 
nothing more to him than a gentleman whom he had 
met at the club.” 


THE RUNAWAY. 


191 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE RUNAWAY. 

Brenda sat down by the bed, and she looked very 
beautiful, a circumstance upon which Elsie did not 
fail to comment with great satisfaction. 

“ You will be very happy,” she said. And then she 
heaved a little sigh, presumably for herself. 

My dear child,” replied Brenda, this is altogether 
too sudden and incomprehensible to suit a conven- 
tional person like myself. This weird flirtation of the 
madhouse which Dr. Kendall and I seem to have begun 
in a manner shamelessly public may be only the tem- 
porary aberration of our minds and have nothing to do 
with our hearts. I hope it will strike in; I do most 
devoutly. Then you and Clarence could arrange your 
agreeable romance without remorse ” 

“ That is ended,” said Elsie. “ In fact, it never be- 
gan. Brenda, you opened your heart to me; let me 
open mine to you. I want some one in the world, 
some one whom I care for, to know the whole truth.” 

Are you sure you really wish to trust me with 


192 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


this confidence ? asked Brenda earnestly. ** You do 
not really know me. Your mother may soon be with 
you.” 

I would never tell my mother,” said Elsie sadly. 
‘‘ She has had trouble enough. As for trusting you, 
knowing you — why, it seems to me that we have been 
here together since the dawn of recorded history and 
you were my friend the first minute. I’m afraid you 
may not care to be, after you have heard the story, 
but I don’t want to hold you by false pretenses. So 
hear me, Brenda.” 

‘‘ It will not excite you ? It will not make you ill 
again ? ” 

“ It would excite and worry me if I should stop now 
after I have made up my mind,” said Elsie. “ Listen, 
You shall know everything but a name. I can’t tell 
you that.” 

Brenda was silent. She was saying to herself : “ I 
am afraid. My heart is trembling for this girl.” 

It doesn’t matter when, it doesn’t matter where,” 
continued Elsie, “ but when and where fate pleased, 
I met a man who took a great liking to me. I knov/ 
little now, and I knew far less then, though it wasn’t 
so long ago. He was an educated man, and I was 
not an educated girl, but I wished that I was. We 
met in a merry party, and I expected him to talk fri- 


THE RUNAWAY. 


193 


volity. He didn’t. His conversation was very im- 
proving. Oh, he took a deep interest in my mind. 

** What idiots girls are ! Why, this man read me 
like a book. He saw that I was full of yellow covered 
ambitions and ten cent aspirations. He had probably 
seen a great many girls equally deserving of encour- 
agement. I thought he was splendid. I put my 
hand in his and prepared to ascend the hill of learn- 
ing. 

‘‘ It was a supper after the theater, and we rode to 
my house together in a hansom afterward at 2 o’clock 
in the morning, and the chaperon of our supper party 
rode in another direction in another hansom with an- 
other man. My escort talked about the ‘ Rubaiyat ’ 
of Omar Khayyam, and I then first appreciated the 
beauties of that sublime composition. Afterward he 
spoke of my work in a very earnest and encouraging 
way. He let me know that he had been quite a student 
of the drama and that his criticism and advice would 
be of the greatest assistance. That, at least, was the 
inference. Finally he bade me good night on the door- 
steps, with a gentle sadness in his manner which led me 
to know that there was a romance in his life. That 
made me feel safe, for at that time I surely did not 
want him to fall in love with me, and I still retained 
the delusion of my earlier years that romances in a 
person’s life acted like vaccination. 


194 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


The gentleman called upon me the next afternoon, 
and he was very entertaining as well as instructive. 
He brought me a large book. I forget what it was 
about. The next day he took me out to dinner, and I 
remember that he gave me some very shrewd and help- 
ful criticism about my work. Then I didn’t see him 
for two whole days, and I began to miss him quite 
a bit'. At that time I was lonely. My girl friends in 
the profession were all out of town, and some of the 
men in the company who wished to be kind to me were 
rough in their ways — not at all like the cultured gentle- 
man whose acquaintance I had been so fortunate as to 
make,” 

“ But didn’t you ask about him ? ” said Brenda. 
“ Didn’t you find out how he stood socially ? ” 

Elsie laughed. 

“ How was I to find out any of those things ? ” she 
said. “ The world is a big place, in the midst of which 
is society as you know it, a little mutual insurance com- 
pany for the purpose of protecting its members, espe- 
cially the younger ones, against accidents. I only knew 
that I liked this man and that he seemed to be a true 
friend to me. What other guide was I to have except 
my own beautiful ignorance ? ” 

I don’t know,” said Brenda aloud, but to herself 
she was saying: The more wrong she has suffered the 


THE RUNAWAY. 


I9S 

more I want to help her. I won’t let anything take her 
away from me.” 

“ Presently I heard the story of the romance in his 
life,” continued Elsie. “ It appeared that the gentle- 
man was married — most unhappily. Where was his 
wife ? He had permitted her to obtain a divorce. This 
was pure generosity on his part. He would rather suf- 
fer an injustice than attack in the courts the woman 
he had sworn to love and cherish. He mentioned 
several high society precedents for this conduct. In 
fact, he convinced me that divorce was, upon the whole, 
a mark of distinction in these days. It appeared that 
his was a sort of limited divorce which did not permit 
him to remarry, but after this aspect of it had been 
presented to me on several occasions, he discovered that 
he could marry under certain conditions with the full 
sanction of the law and heaven. 

Well, Brenda, let’s be fair. I wanted to marry the 
man. I persuaded myself that I was in love with him. 
I wasn’t. I can see that now. I wasn’t within a million 
miles of loving him, but I was ready to be loved, 
Brenda ; that’s the truth about it. My heart was full of 
tenderness, and I saw the whole world rose tinted in 
the light of the dawn of love. That’s poetical. But 
wait a minute. I am coming to something very un- 
romantic. I wrote this story, Brenda — wrote it all 
down for a great heart thrilling novel — and then had 


196 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


sense enough to burn it. But that helps me to tell it 
straight, and you’ll catch fine phrases now and then, 
but you won’t laugh at me. 

“ Well, we were engaged, of course. My fiance pre- 
sented me with a diamond ring, and diamonds are my 
soul’s delight. After I got this one I used to keep a 
little light burning in my room at night so that I might 
see it sparkle if I happened to be wakeful. I subse- 
quently learned that there was a financial irregularity 
involved in the obtaining of the glittering gem, but I 
did not know that until after it had passed out of my 
possession.” 

'' Where did fate find this precious rascal ? ” whis- 
pered Brenda. And why did fate send him to you ? ” 

“ Why did fate send a good man afterward ? ” said 
Elsie. ‘‘Why not before? Well, ‘the moving finger 
writes and, having writ, moves on ’ — It was to be. 
Finally the gentleman announced that a marriage under 
the laws of the State of Pennsylvania would meet the 
requirements of the situation. I was a good deal 
startled by this definite suggestion, and I wrote to my 
mother on the subject for the first time. The gentle- 
man took the letter to post, and it has not been de- 
livered yet, thank heaven! I suppose he read it — my 
poor, foolish letter to my mother. 

“ Before it was time to get an answer sudden busi- 
ness of great importance called my fiance to Philadel- 


THE RUNAWAY. 


197 


phia. How opportune ! Well, Brenda, I packed a lit- 
tle hand bag and went. What must you think of me ? 

Brenda bent down gently and kissed Elsie’s hand 
and held it against her face. 

I don’t know the story yet,” she said, but you 
have portrayed a thorough scoundrel. And you have 
also shown me a trusting and true-hearted girl who 
went to be married with an innocent heart. Blessed 
heaven ! Think of a man for whom a young and pure 
girl will go out into the world like that, as if to walk 
in the fields! Should not every fiber of his soul be 
thrilled to loyalty for all his life ? ” 

“ The gentleman in question had no soul,” said Elsie. 

I think he will be spared all punishment hereafter, as 
the brutes are. Let us proceed, Brenda, dear. 
The remainder of the story is not long. 
We took the ii o’clock train and reached Philadelphia 
in time for luncheon. Our marriage was to be kept 
secret for awhile, and there seemed to be some slight 
objection to the public dining room of the hotel where 
our hansom set us down. However, we lunched there 
quite hastily, for I had no appetite. Then we re- 
entered the hansom and went to look for a minister. 
We had remarkable difficulty in finding one, consider- 
ing that Philadelphia is a large city full of churches, 
but we finally succeeded. Then it appeared that we 
had neglected to comply with certain formalities, but 


198 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


the clergyman was able to rectify the matter, and so we 
were married, pitifully, as I see it now, with stupid old 
servants and a chance laborer who happened to be at 
work in the house as our witnesses. 

When we got back to the hotel it was 6 o’clock, 
and I was nearly famished. We hurried right into the 
dining room, and my husband ordered a great spread, 
with champagne, for our miserable celebration, and 
now I will tell you the unromantic part. In the midst 
of that dinner, and while I fancied that I was eating 
with a splendid appetite, I was suddenly seized with 
the most awful pain that ever devastated my poor 
little stomach. Yes, Brenda, it was a regular, terrible 
stomach ache — just pain, without a bit of nausea. I 
felt as if some one had my stomach in his hand — a hand 
about the size of Captain Neale’s — and was crushing it 
to pieces. 

My husband said he guessed it would soon pass 
away, but it didn’t, and so he left his dinner and ran out 
to a drug store to get me something to take. When he 
came back, I took it, and I didn’t feel any worse, be- 
cause that wasn’t possible, but I certainly felt no better. 
In a few minutes I began to realize that I was going 
out of my wits. I talked insanely and saw things that 
weren’t there. The next thing I knew we were riding 
up in an elevator, and it seemed to go up for a week. 
Then there was a woman leading me along a hall and 


THE RUNAWAY. 


199 


into a room, and she began to take off my clothes in 
the bedroom of a little suite. I stared at her and asked 
her who she was. 

“ ‘ Fm the assistant housekeeper/’ she said. ‘ I belong 
to the hotel.’ 

“ As if she had been a piece of furniture. Then I 
asked where my husband was, and she said he had gone 
out for a doctor. So she made me lie down. Prob- 
ably I seemed to be there on that bed, but in reality — 
my own reality — I was playing in that old barnstorm- 
ing company and studying, studying, studying on long 
parts that were always changing, but sometimes I was 
a little girl again in a town ’way out in Michigan, run- 
ning through the streets, with my long legs flying and 
my heels touching the back of my head, as my mother 
used to say. I stole the neighbors’ flowers in the 
scented June evenings, and staid out under the little 
whispering stars till my mother came, weeping with 
anxiety, to bring me home. And, strangely enough, 
right in the midst of it all there stood the doctor, a 
tall, gaunt young man, asking me how I felt. But 
where was my husband ? 

“ ‘ He has not got back,’ said the woman. * I was 
afraid to wait any longer, so I got this gentleman, who 
is a New York doctor stopping in the hotel.’ 

‘‘ Then I felt something sharp pricking my arm and 
afterward the pain was easier, and my mind suddenly 


200 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


became as clear as it is now. I heard the doctor say 
that I would be all right when I had had some sleep, 
and then my husband appeared, looking in between the 
curtains that hung by the bedroom door. It seems 
that he had not brought a doctor, but had left word for 
one to come, 

** My husband remained there, between the curtains, 
perfectly rigid, staring, pale as a ghost. He was look- 
ing at the doctor beside my bed, and glancing up I saw 
that the doctor was staring at him. 

“‘You!’ said the doctor, and he took three strides 
out of the room, my husband backing away as the other 
advanced. 

“ They whispered together ; they thought I could 
not hear. But, Brenda, I would have heard them if 
they had been in New York. 

“ ‘ She says you were married this afternoon,’ said 
the doctor. ‘ How is that ? ’ 

“ ‘ Who in the devil’s name called you in ? ’ de- 
manded my husband. ‘ Where did you come from ? ’ 
This is State prison business,” said the doctor, 
without minding the questions. ‘ You are living legally 
separated from your wife, but you are not divorced, 
and you never will be by your own consent, for her 
father is paying you to behave yourself.’ 

“ ‘ There has been no marriage here,’ said my hus- 


THE RUNAWAY. 


201 


band. ‘ Don't say anything. This is a mere freak of 
mine. I’ll make it right with you if you’ll keep quiet.’ 

“ ‘ You lie,’ said the doctor, and then, ' Am I too late 
to save her ? ’ 

My husband answered ‘ Yes.’ Brenda, how is it 
possible for a human being to utter a falsehood like 
that ? I was no more to him than you are, except that 
I had promised before God to be his wife. And the 
doctor looked him in the eyes a moment and then struck 
him across the face with the back of his open hand and 
went out of the room. 

My husband came to the curtains and looked in ; 
then he approached the bed, and I groaned as loud as 
I could. At that he seemed to lose his wits. He ran 
around the room aimlessly and at last snatched his hat 
from the floor and rushed out. I suppose he was going 
for another doctor. 

** When he was gone, I invented an errand and sent 
the woman away. Then I got up and dressed. I don’t 
know how it was possible for me to do it, but I seemed 
to be as light as a feather. I got out of the hotel easily 
enough and took a cab to the railroad station. I had 
not money enough for a sleeper, so I rode in a day 
coach all the way to New York, but my mind was in a 
thousand places, and some of them were beautiful, and 
I was happy there, and again I was in terror and pain. 

When I left the train at Jersey City my head was 


202 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


bursting upon my shoulders and the air was fire. 
Honestly, Brenda, when the ferryboat ran into the slip 
on this side, I thought it was the mouth of the infernal 
regions. It looked like a great cave full of flames, and 
it seemed that I was being crushed and thrust into it. 
Yet I must have had some part of my senses, for I 
found a cab and gave the driver my address. And so 
I came home from my wedding journey, Brenda. I let 
myself in with my key, and the people in the house 
never knew that I had been away that night. They 
found me ill and got a doctor for me, and before the 
day was over I was nearly well. The doctor said I 
must have eaten some sort of a thing — what do they 
call it — I always think of tomatoes?'’ ( 

“ Ptomaines," said Brenda. “ Oh, you poor child ; 
you poor, wretched, lucky little Elsie! I am so glad, 
so glad ! " 

“ Would you believe," said Elsie, that that man 
tried to get my heart back again ; to plead his cause with 
me? Well, he did, and, though I had peace for quite 
a long time, of late I have been much annoyed by him. 
You can understand now why Clarence Alden's love 
was torture to me, why — well, why I bought the pic- 
ture of Tantalus to look at, Brenda. Oh, I love him, 
I love him so much ! The feast of the heart that I can 
never have ! He is everything I want, Brenda." 

But why in the name of all martyrdom should you 


THE RUNAWAY. 


203 


hesitate to tell this story to him ? ” exclaimed Brenda. 

What bar can it be to your marriage ? ” 

'' One day/’ said Elsie slowly, “ when I was begin- 
ning to love Clarence so that my heart sang of him all 
the time, I was walking on Broadway and had stopped 
to look in at a jeweler’s window. And I glanced up, 
and Clarence was coming down the street with that 
doctor ! ” 

“The one who attended you in Philadelphia ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Elsie. “ They were laughing and talk- 
ing together, and I shrank into a doorway and died of 
shame as they passed. Suppose they had seen me ? ” 

“ I think no harm would have come of it,” said 
Brenda. 

“ Suppose I married Clarence and we should meet 
him then ? ” 

“ But, my dear,” exclaimed Brenda, “ take the wild- 
est possible supposition. Say that this doctor believed 
the worst and told it to Clarence and lived to finish the 
story, which unless he is Samson reincarnated is not 
possible, it would make no difference. Unless Clarence 
can believe you absolutely against every other voice in 
the world, you don’t want to marry him anyway.” 

“ You don’t know men,” said Elsie, shaking her 
head. “ One little doubt, and there is misery for a life- 
time. I heard Clarence speak once of a woman who 


204 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


had gone wrong. It frightened my bones until they 
turned to dust in my body.” 

But, Elsie, you haven’t done any wrong,” pleaded 
Brenda. “ You were cruelly deceived ” 

“ I no more than the others,” replied Elsie. “ Every 
woman who goes wrong is deceived, or there would be 
no wrong. The point is, Brenda, that that is not the 
way to get married. No really good girl ever does 
such a thing. I should have had my mother and my 
friends to see me make my vow. That is the only right 
way ; your way, Brenda, the way of your world. And, 
besides, I haven’t told you all. I am really his wife.” 

‘‘ What do you mean ? ” 

“ His wife from whom he was separated was abroad 
at the time,” said Elsie. ‘‘ She died two days before 
my marriage. That’s why I called him my husband all 
the way through the story.” 

Brenda was speechless for some seconds before the 
spectacle of this fatality. 

“ I don’t see that that makes it any worse,” she said 
at last. ‘‘ Better, I should say. Such a marriage can 
be easily annulled. It does not even require a divorce.” 

‘‘ It requires legal proceedings,” said Elsie. It 
means publicity and branding. It means that Clarence 
Alden’s wife will be marked as a woman with a past, 
with a romantic scandal attached to her name. It 
would be bad enough, Brenda, for him to marry me 


THE RUNAWAY. 


205 


anyway, but an actress, with that story fastened to her ! 
Well, you know what all the world would say. No ; I 
would rather die. I would rather he should never 
know. I’d lie to him, Brenda, if necessary — I have lied 
to him, as you are aware — rather than he should think 
me the sort of girl who, on a hasty acquaintance with 
a man about whom she knows nothing, would run 
away to a strange city, trusting to luck to be married 
there.” 

Brenda kissed Elsie’s hand again very tenderly. 

“ ril tell you what, my dear,” said she; the fact is 
that you have brooded over this matter until you are 
not quite sane about it. I really mean what I say. 
Now, this is my advice to you: Tell Mr. Alden this 
story just as soon as you’re strong enough to do it 
and ” 

Elsie gripped her hand hard. 

I have told you this in confidence,” she said. Give 
me your solemn word that you will never breathe one 
syllable of it; that you will help me in every way to 
conceal it ! Promise ! ” 

The word and honor of one who loves you, Elsie,” 
Brenda answered. Whatever you wish I will do.” 

** You are so good to me ! ” said Elsie, letting her 
head sink back into the pillows. 

^ There is one thing more,” said Brenda. ** Did 
he, your husband, strike this blow ? ” 


2o6 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ Don’t ask me that,” cried Elsie. “ I can never tell 
you how I got this wound. Think what a frightful 
burden that knowledge would be to you if I should 
die.” 


A FEW WORDS WITH A PROFLIGATE. 


207 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

A FEW WORDS WITH A PROFLIGATE. 

The Curry Building is called after the gentleman 
who caused it to be built, but some have said that the 
highly seasoned lives of its bachelor tenants might 
have suggested the name, even if there had been no 
Mr. Curry. Among these tenants was Reginald 
Bowen, son of the late John Y. Bowen, who had been a 
banker. 

i ** What floor is young Bowen on ? ” asked Captain 
Neale, entering the elevator car on the Broadway side 
of the building. 

** You want to see him ? ” queried the youth in 
charge. “ Go into the office and send up your name.” 

I don’t send up any names,” responded the captain. 
“If you’re going up with me, shut the door. If not, 
get out.” 

“ We’ll see about that,” retorted the youth, who was 
a new comer in those parts; and the next instant he 
was sprawling in the hall, while the car was beginning 
to ascend. 


2o8 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


The superintendent of the building arrived upon the 
scene just in time to catch a glimpse of Neale before 
he passed into eclipse beyond the second floor. 

'' That was the captain of the precinct, you chump,” 
said the superintendent to his minion. What did he 
want ? ” 

“ Wanted to see Mr. Bowen,” answered the youth, 
dusting his knees ; “ and I told him ” 

“ Never mind what you told him,” said the superin- 
tendent. “ Go up and bring the car down.” 

Then he softly and respectfully closed the sliding 
door of the shaft, and went back to the office. The boy 
found the car at the sixth floor, for Captain Neale, on 
the way up, had remembered where Mr. Bowen’s 
rooms were situated. 

Mr. Bowen was lying upon a couch in his parlor, 
trying to smoke, as a test of his health, for when to- 
bacco begins to taste good one may dismiss the doctor. 
The occupant of No. 68 had been ill for more than a 
week, and was becoming impatient to resume that way 
of life which had led to his illness. He was a flabby- 
cheeked young man of a sandy complexion, his hair 
quite gray just above the ears, but not elsewhere. His 
expression as he lay there was eloquent of pitiable 
discontent; he viewed the profusion of rich furnish- 
ings with weary disgust, his eyes wandering here and 


A FEW WORDS WITH A PROFLIGATE. 


209 


there, in the vain search for anything, even the most 
trivial, that could afford a momentary interest. 

The little twittering bell at the door broke out into 
a note of alarm, and Bowen glanced toward it grate- 
fully, as he called : “ Come in I ” whereupon entered 
Captain Neale, with a considerable affectation of 
politeness. 

It was Bowen’s misfortune that he could not “ place ” 
people. To borrow his own favorite phrase : he knew 
that he knew Neale, but he did not know who he was. 
The captain was not in uniform, and to an eye studi- 
ously unheedful of details there was nothing about him 
that denoted his calling. He had the air of one who 
has come determined to get something; and from the 
misty gulf of Bowen’s mind there rose a sudden flight 
of most unpleasant reminiscences. 

“ The devil ! ” he said. “ Whose collector are youf ” 

The perfect sincerity of this insult was a consider- 
able shock even to Neale. 

‘‘You know me well enough,” said he, gruffly; and 
at the voice, Bowen recognized him. 

“ Why it’s Captain Neale ! ” he cried, getting weakly 
to his feet. “ Glad to see you, of course. I’ve been 
sick; beastly headaches, and that sort of thing. It’s 
affected my eyes ; shouldn’t recognize my own face in 
a mirror at five paces.” 

“ It hasn’t changed much,” reltorted the captain. 


210 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ Looks about the same to me as it did when we locked 
you up, over to the station-house, a couple of years 
ago. 

“ Let me see,’' said Bowen, reflectively ; what was 
it for, that time? Matter of the plate glass window, 
eh?” 

“ No ; it was the cabman,” answered the captain. 
“ He was pretty badly used up.” 

“ Singular circumstance,” responded Bowen, rub- 
bing the top of his head where the hair was thinning. 
“ Do you know that when I saw him in court next 
morning — ^being sober at the time — my blood ran cold 
at the idea that I had ever dared to raise my hand 
against a man so big as he was.” 

Well, well,” said the captain, those good old days 
are gone. I hear you’ve straightened up, turned over 
a new leaf ” 

“ Who dreamed that dream ? ” interrupted Bowen, 
with some show of interest. “ Do you know ? They 
say the thing was in a newspaper. I’ve had reporters 
here ; didn’t see ’em, though.” 

“ About your engagement, I suppose ? ” 

“ As to that,” rejoined Bowen, sitting up straight, 
“ I merely said what any gentleman would, under the 
circumstances; that the young lady in question had 
honored me with only the most distant acquaintance, 
and that I did not presume to hope that she would ever 


A FEW WORDS WITH A PROFLIGATE. 


2II 


distinguish me with any further consideration. And 
that settles it so far as I am concerned,” he added, 
sinking back. “ She is amply provided with brothers.” 

Neale’s jaws tightened their grip upon his half- 
consumed cigar, while he looked shrewdly at Bowen, 
with narrowed eyes. He was very much disappointed 
at his own decision after this survey, which was that 
the young man had spoken the truth. The captain had 
built high upon this idle story of Bowen’s engagement. 

“ So don’t hesitate to speak of the good old days,” 
continued Bowen, from any notion that the mention 
of them may offend me. And if there’s any other little 
matter, aside from these friendly reminiscences, upon 
your mind, why out with it.” 

“ There’s a bit of business,” Neale began, “ that I 
thought I’d mention to you this afternoon. Consider- 
ing how well you know me and I know you, it seemed 
as if we shouldn’t have no trouble in coming to an 
understanding.” 

“ Business isn’t in my line,” answered the young 
man. I used to think it was, but my father knew 
better, and that’s why all my money is in trust. How- 
ever ” 

“ It’s about the option on the Holbein company’s out- 
fit,” said Neale. What’s it worth? ” 

** What' do you want to do with it ? ” retorted 
Bowen. 


212 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


A friend of mine would like to buy the business/^ 

“ So would Clarence M. Alden.’^ 

I Vo heard a rumor to that effect,” said Neale. 
“ What does he want of it.” 

I never could quite make it out,” answered Bowen. 
“Just a speculation, I guess. Yet the fellow acts as 
if there were something big on hand. He's a queer 
proposition, any way.” 

“ You had a row with him a while ago, didn't you? ” 

Bowen slowly shook his head. 

“ Come now,” cried Neale, “ tell a straight story. 
You would'nt give him this thing because you had a 
personal grudge.” 

Bowen carefully dishevelled the hair on the front 
part of his head until it became a bewildering tangle. 
The process seemed to calm him, but it made Neale 
nervous. 

“ That's all over,” said Bowen at last. “ I'm merely 
sorry for him now. He must be feeling mighty bad.” 

“ Been reading about the case ? ” asked the captain, 
glancing at a pile of newspapers. 

“ Oh, I always get all the papers,” was the reply. 
“ I glanced over the stories.” 

“ Didn't happen to know the girl ? ” 

“ No,” answered Bowen, surprised. “ That is. I'd 
seen her. I was at a dinner party once, where she hap- 
pened to be. That was quite a while ago.” 


A FEW WORDS WITH A PROFLIGATE. 


213 


“ Ever see her afterwards ? ” 

Bowen shook his head. The captain devoted some 
seconds to deep thought. 

“ About this option,” he said ; “ you’d better let me 
have it. If you’ve any feeling about Alden, you can be 
sure I’m not acting in his interests. You’ve turned 
down one or two people on that ground, I hear.” 

Leave Alden out of it,’ ’answered Bowen sullenly ; 
“ he’s got trouble enough. As for the option, you can’t 
have it. That’s final.” 

Neale learned forward toward the couch, and softly 
hewed the air with his long and heavy forefinger. 

“ I’m a good man to have as a friend,” he said, 
‘*and the worst kind to have as an enemy. And you 
ain’t the boy who can afford to be on the wrong side of 
me. 

** Yes, I am,” responded Bowen ; really, you know, 
I’m pretty nearly the only kind of fellow that can 
afford to tell you to go to blazes. If I were an honest 
merchant doing business down here on this thorough- 
fare, I’d know that you could annoy me in five hun- 
dred ways, and hurt my trade. For the sake of my 
wife and eleven small children I’d have to make a 
friend of the Mammon of Unrighteousness ; you being 
it, do you understand? And if I were an habitual 
lawbreaker whose offences had money in them. I’d 
have to divide with you in order to go on making my 


214 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


living. But the offences that I commit have no profit 
in them ; they are all loss. When I kick the windows 
out of a cab there’s nothing to divide, except what 
the cabby gets out of me, and that he has to divide 
with you anyhow, and you don’t leave him enough to 
pay for new windows. Even if I were Jekyl and 
Hyde, there’d be Jekyl’s reputation. But I’m all 
Hyde: I haven’t any reputation. You tell a story 
about me and I’ll tell another, twice as bad. It’s a 
way some of us have of protecting ourselves against 
blackmail.” 

“ Blackmail is a hard name,” said the captain. 
“ This is a matter of business. I want to show you 
where your interest lies.” 

Upon my word,” answered Bowen, in a weak 
voice, I’d like to hear you. I’ve no doubt you’d 
succeed in scaring me blue in the face before you got 
through, and I’ve a curiosity to know how you’d do 
it. But I’m too sick to stand the excitement ; honestly 
I am. My head aches fit to split. I’ve been laid up 
for ten days, and pretty bad most of the time. So 
I’ll have to call this thing off. 

You will? ” demanded Neale. “ Well, that’s cool. 
How do you think you’re going to do it ? ” 

Easily enough,” responded Bowen. “You want 
that option; you don’t want my life, except incident- 
ally. So when I tell you that I don’t hold the option ; 


A FEW WORDS WITH A PROFLIGATE. 


215 


that I transferred it a couple of hours ago, after a 
conversation which accounts for some of this head- 
ache’' — 

“ You transferred it? ” cried Neale, leaning forward 
and looking into the other’s face. “Who to?” 

“ Duncan Maclane.” 

At the mention of this name Neale rose slowly from 
his chair, Bowen at the same time, and with obvious 
effort, rising from the couch. The captain took sev- 
eral steps backward toward the door, his gaze fixed 
on the other’s face, where he was shrewd enough to 
read the truth. 

“He told you why he wanted it?” said Neale. 

“ He said that he had been led into betraying a 
secret of Alden’s into the keeping of an untrustworthy 
person,” replied Bowen. “ He told how this had hap- 
pened. I’m not over-scrupulous, but I didn’t care to 
take advantage of a situation of that kind. And then 
the old fellow used to know my father. So he got the 
option at his own figure. He had no idea, though, 
that you were after it.” 

“ How do you know he hadn’t ? ” demanded Neale. 

“ Because he made use of the very mild term, ‘ un- 
trustworthy person,’ ” answered Bowen. “ If he had 
said a hammer-headed shark with two extra rows of 
teeth” 

Neale was in no mood for jesting; and he struck 


2i6 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


the sick man in the face. It was not a violent blow, 
but Bowen was weak, and he fell back across the 
table in the center of the room, staggering thence to 
the wall, where he leaned a moment against the mantel 
over the grate. 

There was quite an elaborate decoration of swords 
on the wall above, for Bowen was much given to 
fencing, which was almost his only exercise. 

“ People who are too funny ” Neale began, his 

hand upon the knob of the door; and then, in the 
sixteenth part of a second there appeared a blue streak 
of steel in the air, approaching his breast, so it looked 
to him, with the speed of lightning, while Bowen be- 
hind it seemed rather to be drawn along than himself 
the impelling force. 

Neale, within his limits, was physically brave, and 
thought himself much more so than he was ; yet against 
this particular form of death his heart was not pre- 
pared. In that instant he beheld himself skewered, 
the steel protruding from his back and nailing him 
to the door. It seemed incredible to him that he should 
have the time to flee, but somehow he was transported 
into the hall, and his heels were clattering on the 
stairs. Glancing back from the foot of them, he saw 
Bowen leaning over the rail, a grin upon his face. 
Immediately the sword came rattling down. 

‘‘ Look at the point, you cowardly whelp ! ” cried 


A FEW WORDS WITH A PROFLIGATE. 


217 


Bowen; and instinctively the captain’s glance fell to 
the weapon at his feet. It was a foil with the point 
as dull as the wrong end of a lead pencil. 

When Neale looked up again, with an oath that 
made the windows rattle, his adversary had vanished. 


2I8 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE GLINT OF STEEL. 

After disclosing to Elmendorf the result of the 
experiment with the white mice, Dr. Kendall visited 
Elsie's room, as has already been mentioned. The 
strange scene with Brenda, following upon Elsie's 
jest, tended rather to unsettle than to calm the doc- 
tor's mind. It seemed as if fate had obstinately de- 
termined to involve Brenda in the most distressing 
difficulties, and to cast upon her the most unjust sus- 
picions. 

Kendall deeply regretted having taken Elmendorf 
into his confidence in the matter of the discovery 
of the attempt to poison Elsie. How had it been pos- 
sible for him to commit an indiscretion so gross? He 
saw himself a mere gull of the detective's, hood- 
winked by the man's assumed sincerity and gentle- 
manly bearing; betraying the woman he loved to 
the police. For beyond all question, plain even to 
his own prejudiced mind, the person most open to 


THE GLINT OF STEEL. 


219 


the suspicion of this latest murderous attempt was 
Brenda. 

He was informed by an attendant that Elmendorf 
had asked for him within a few minutes. Apparently 
the detective had not left the hospital; and Kendall 
sought for him vainly in all those portions of the 
building to which it was conceivable that he had 
gained admission. Convinced at last that Elmendorf 
must have gone out unobserved, Kendall returned to 
Elsie’s room with the intention of taking Brenda into 
his confidence. 

It was also upon his mind that he would make cer- 
tain observations that might guide him in reaching a 
decision concerning the precise method to be em- 
ployed in the attempt to locate the bit of metal from 
the knife-blade, which now constituted Elsie’s greatest 
peril. The time had come when this must be found, 
for Elsie’s life was now not only precious in the doc- 
tor’s eyes, as it had been from the first; it had become 
absolutely essential ; it must be saved. 

When he entered the room the patient seemed to 
be asleep; indeed, she had been wearied by her long 
and deeply intimate talk with Brenda, and had, be- 
sides, experienced a certain measure of the relief that 
comes from the disclosure of a painful secret long 
borne alone. Brenda had evidently been writing a 
hasty note. Paper and envelopes were scattered upon 


220 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


the table, and Brenda was exploring a small purse in 
search of a postage stamp, as Kendall guessed. 

After a glance at Elsie, he sat down in a chair near 
the door, and remained silent for a minute or two, 
thinking upon the best way of telling, not indeed his 
secret, but the mere fact that he had one. Brenda, 
having shaken out the contents of the purse, and found 
a stamp, was affixing it to an envelope which was ad- 
dressed to her father. This done, she walked to the 
window to arrange the shade. Turning back, she 
said in a voice so low that he must watch her lips 
while listening: 

“ A little less light and she will sleep the better.” 

“ You have dropped something,” whispered Ken- 
dall, coming forward, and stooping ; from your 
purse, I suppose.” 

Where ? ” asked Brenda. “ I don’t see anything.” 

“ I don’t see it myself, now,” answered Kendall, 
‘‘ but the light struck upon it as I sat over there. I 
think you have put your foot upon it.” 

Brenda’s left foot was advanced; she withdrew it, 
but nothing was to be seen upon the floor in the spot 
where it had been. Kendall was puzzled, and he re- 
turned to his previous position. 

Ah ” ; he said, after a moment’s hesitation, “ you 
must have knocked it under the table. Here it is. 
Brenda ! In the name of heaven ” 


THE GLINT OF STEEL. 


221 


He stopped, erect now, his hand extended, a little 
shining object held between his thumb and finger. 
Brenda caught him by the wrist. 

“ It is absolutely impossible,” she cried ; “ it simply 
cannot be” 

No, no,” responded Kendall ; of course not. 
This is mere coincidence. Yet it’s absurd to say so. 
Wait; we have the knife here!” 

Elsie stirred upon the pillows, and, turning her 
head, blinked at Brenda. 

I thought I heard Dr. Kendall’s voice,” she said, 
‘‘and the noise of the door. Was he here? Why, 
what’s the matter ? ” 

“ Dr. Kendall was here,” replied Brenda. “ He 
just went out. We — we seem to have made an im- 
portant discovery. Dear Elsie ” — and she knelt by the 
bed — “ I hardly dare to tell you.” 

“ Am I worse ? ” asked Elsie. “ I don’t feel so. I 
feel first rate. But don’t you be afraid to tell me, 
whatever it is.” 

“ It is perfectly incredible,” said Brenda, “ but we 
have found the little piece of steel that was broken 
from the knife-blade.” 

“Found it?” echoed Elsie. “When I was asleep? 
How in the world ” 

“We found it on the floor. I don’t know how to 


222 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


explain it. I don’t even know how to begin to think 
about it.” 

Elsie began to cry in a gently hysterical way, re- 
peating over and over again betwen her sobs : “ I 
was so afraid of it; I was so afraid of it! ” Brenda 
was soothing her with the tenderness whose expres- 
sion she had first learned there, beside that bed, when 
Kendall knocked, and entered at the word. He had 
resumed the professional manner which this incident 
had shaken off him, but his face was pale and the fore- 
head deeply lined. 

There can be no doubt of it,” he said to Brenda. 
“ I have fitted the piece to the blade. Indeed, I was 
sure before that. Little girl,” he added, turning to 
Elsie, you’ve not to cry any more 

“ I told her brutally,” Brenda interrupted. I was 
so excited.” 

“Well, it is something of a shock,” said Kendall, 
“ to all of us. The first day she was here I’d have 
given my little finger for this bit of steel, and the 
price has been growing, until to-day in the midst of 
those fainting spells, it was my head.” 

“ You found it on the floor,” said Elsie, controlling 
her sobs. “ I don’t understand it. Could it have 
worked out of the wound ? ” 

Kendall smiled grimly. 

“ It couldn’t have come out of the wound,” he said. 


THE GLINT OF STEEL, 


223 


“ Its appearance shows that it was never in the 
wound. It was broken otf before the blow was 
struck.” 

“ But I know that it wasn’t,” protested Elsie. ''I 
used that knife to cut the envelope of Mr. Alden’s 
note, and the blade was whole. I have already said 
so, and there can be no possible doubt of it.” 

“ Then the assassin ” — began Kendall, and paused. 
“ But we mustn’t talk any more about it. The prin- 
cipal thing is that we have it, and that we now fear 
nothing. Ah, little girl, I’m so glad. You think doc- 
tors don’t worry, but I’ve worried many an hour 
about you. And now I’m more than thankful.” 

“ You were going to say,” insisted Elsie, ‘‘ that the 
assassin must have broken the knife, but I don’t un- 
derstand ” 

How he broke it,” said Kendall, or how the 
piece happens to be here. Let’s not think about it. 
Sufficient unto the day is the good news that you’re 
going to get well. Promise me that you’ll not worry 
your brain with riddles while I’m gone — for I must 
go now.” 

Brenda followed him to the door. 

The murderer must have had that piece of steel,” 
she whispered. “He must have been in this room, 
and have dropped it here. But how ” 

They had stepped into the hall. 


224 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


How did he bring it ? you would say/’ asked Ken- 
dall. “ Why did he preserve it, and how did he hap- 
pen to drop it on this floor? I don’t know.” 

“ It is utterly incomprehensible to me,” said Brenda. 
‘‘ Can the fragment have been held in Elsie’s cloth- 
ing?” 

“ She was undressed in another room,” replied Ken- 
dall. Her clothes were brought here and were put 
into that wardrobe ; and I suppose they have not been 
disturbed since. Can that shining bit of steel have 
lain upon this floor ever since ? ” 

** It is impossible.” 

‘‘ More than impossible,” said Kendall. “ None of 
her undergarments were brought here at all; they 
were sent to the hospital laundry, as is our invariable 
rule. The things brought here were carefully shaken, 
brushed and aired.” 

Then the murderer must have brought it,” said 
Brenda with a shudder. ‘‘ But why ? ” 

** That is utterly beyond my guess,” responded Ken- 
dall. “ Indeed, I disbelieve it. There is some other 
explanation. It will prove to be the key of the mys- 
tery.” 

''There are reasons,” said Brenda, "why I would 
not use that key ; why I would rather this crime should 
remain a mystery.” 


THE GLINT OF STEEL. 


225 


“I dare not conceal the fact that we have found 
it/^ said Kendall. ‘‘Yet if you ask me ’’ 

“I would not make such a request,” answered 
Brenda. “ Your own judgment must guide you.” 

Kendall walked slowly toward his own room, so - 
deep in thought that he started like a guilty man 
when Elmendorf suddenly laid a hand upon his 
shoulder. 

“ Where have you been ? ” demanded the doctor. 

“ I tried to find you a few minutes ago. Come into 
my room.” 

“ I haven’t much time,” said the detective. “ I 
must be at Headquarters around five o’clock.” 

“ You will not report this — this suspicion about the 
poison ? ” 

Kendall had closed the door and now stood with 
his back against it, while Elmendorf dropped into 
the first chair that was convenient. 

“ Not if you don’t want me to,” said the detective, 
looking up into Kendall’s face with a very engaging 
air of frankness. The doctor was conscious of a sud- 
den, strong impulse of friendliness, born of gratitude. 

“ I’ve no right to ask so much of you,” he said. 

“ Of course, it’s your duty to report fully, but if you 
could delay until we’re more sure of our ground ” 

“ Don’t tell anybody else,” said Elmendorf. “ Don’t 
let this thing get around to Headquarters in some 


226 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


other way. That’s all I care about. You see, as I’ve 
told you often already, if anything should go wrong, 
the case would have to be sifted thoroughly ; and then 
I might have to tell some things that I’d a good deal 
rather keep to myself. By the way,” he added, in 
a tone that seemed to indicate a really deep anxiety, 
“ I hope she’s better now. There’s a good chance for 
her, Doctor ; don’t you think so ? ” 

“ More than a chance,” responded Kendall. “ I’ll 
give you my guarantee for her.” 

‘‘ Why, what do you mean ? ” demanded Elmendorf, 
rising. '' Something new ? By the eternal, there 
is. I can see it in your face.” 

It had been far from Kendall’s intention to disclose 
the secret of the finding of the piece of steel, and yet 
he did it. Elmendorf received the news with many 
expressions of thanksgiving in phrases disjointed, and 
words in themselves as meaningless as oaths; but 
there were tears in his eyes. He leaned weakly upon 
the tall back of the chair in which he had been sit- 
ting, and really seemed quite overcome. 

“ Surprises you, doesn’t it ? ” he said, when Kendall 
had quite finished the story. Well, you see, I 
thought that thing would kill her; I did, upon my 
soul. I’ve never been able to get it off my mind — 
that little knife, as you might call it, lying close by 
her heart and waiting — The devil ! ” 


THE GLINT OF STEEL. 


227 


Hie shook his head, as if to shake the idea out 
of it. 

“ The mystery of this occurrence,” said Kendall 
slowly, ^^doesn’t seem to impress you as it did me.” 

Perhaps it isn’t so mysterious, viewed from my 
position,” replied Elmendorf. Somebody brought 
that piece of knife blade into that room. There’s 
only one motive that I can see.” 

I can’t see any,” responded Kendall. No one 
can have had it except the murderer.” 

Elmendorf suddenly pulled out his watch. 

Positively I must go,” he exclaimed. “ I’m due 
at Headquarters.” 

Kendall, who had stepped away from the door, re- 
turned hastily. 

I can’t stand this,” he said. “ I’ve got to know 
what you think of this affair. I purposely told you 
everything — made it as — as strange as I could.” 

My dear sir,” responded Elmendorf, do you 
suppose I didn’t see that? You were careful to 
tell me that Miss Maclane had been hunting through 
her pocket-book ; that when you saw the piece of steel 
on the floor, she put her foot on it, and then kicked 
it under the table.” 

I knew that she would tell you,” said Kendall. 
“ She would describe just what happened ; and you’d 
say yes or no, as if nothing mattered; and all the 


228 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


time youM go on thinking in that head of yours, that 
no man can see into.’’ 

'' You’re excited,” replied Elmendorf. “You’re in 
a condition to distrust your own father. You’re not 
in a condition to think straight. Why, beyond all 
question that piece of steel was brought into that room 
for a definite purpose. It was intended to be found, 
and I wonder it wasn’t found before. Fancy the 
murderer’s carrying it around as a souvenir and drop- 
ping it by accident! I could laugh. The thing was 
put on the table, probably; and by some one who 
wanted you to know that it wasn’t in the wound, but 
dared not say so.” 

“ That means remorse — a wish to help her,” ex- 
claimed Kendall. “ You forget the poison.” 

“ No, I don’t,” answered the detective. “ I can 
straighten this thing all out for you in a few hours, 
but don’t hurry me. Let me tell you now that Miss 
Maclane had nothing to do with this piece of steel 
except that she probably brushed it off the table when 
she sat down to write her letter.” 

“ How do you know it was on the table ? ” 

“ Why where would you put it, if you were the 
man? Not on the floor, surely, to be kicked around. 
Not on the bed to get mixed up in the clothes. Think 
it over. You’d put it on the table, of course. Well, 


THE GLINT OF STEEL. 


229 


that’s what the other fellow did. And now I’m going 

to tell you what his name was ” 

Kendall gasped as if Elmendorf had struck him on 
the chest. 

“ His name was John Robinson,” continued the de- 
tective, “ and I can prove it. But that’s not the whole 
story. Wait ! ” 


230 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER XX. 

MR. ELMENDORF WITH REGRET REMAINS HONEST. 

When Elmendorf reached Headquarters, shortly 
after five o’clock, the chief of the detective bureau was 
not visible. The sergeant on guard in the outer re- 
gions whispered some names of important personages 
in the detective’s ear. 

I’m obliged to them for calling just at this time,” 
said Elmendorf. *T don’t want to see the old man, 
but I do want to see my prisoner.” 

‘‘ He’s down stairs,” replied the sergeant. “ Go 
ahead.” 

The cells at Police Headquarters are not luxurious. 
They were not unclean, but they had a dungeon odor. 
Mr. Robinson, standing in one of them with his hands 
upon the bars of the door, was experiencing that first 
sickening sensation of degradation, with the peculiar 
terror that accompanies it. It is the loss of caste, the 
weakness of a creature out of his proper environment, 
and it makes itself felt with men above a certain 


MR. ELMENDORF REMAINS HONEST. 


231 


grade of life^ distinct from fear of punishment to 
come, or the remorse for grave transgression. 

Robinson,’' said Elmendorf, you made a mistake. 
You might have know that you were shadowed.” 

“ I didn’t see why I should be,” answered Robinson. 

I haven’t done anything.” 

We’ll come to that in a minute,” said the detective. 

Tdl me first why you went to the hospital.” 

‘‘ To beg Miss Miller to clear me.” 

“What did she say?” 

“ She said she would,” groaned the prisoner ; “but 
she wouldn’t.” 

“I understand,” responded Elmendorf. “You 
wanted her to come out and name somebody else.” 

“ I asked her to do that, but she persisted in saying 
that she did not know who stabbed her.” 

“ Well I do, if she doesn’t,” answered the detective. 
Robinson turned a shade paler. 

“ You don’t mean it ! ” he exclaimed. “ Who was 
it?” 

“ Let’s not be in too much of a hurry,” answered 
Elmendorf. “ By the way, the piece of the knife 
blade has been found.” 

The prisoner made no reply but he hung more 
heavily upon the bars. 

“ I’ll tell you what I did,” said the detective. “ I 
made a hunt for that money right away. And, on the 


232 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


side, I looked you up. I found out that you had been 
crooked over in Philadelphia, and, also, let me say in 
justice to you, that you’d been doing your best to 
square up. I couldn’t connect you in any way with 
Miss Miller, nor establish any previous acquaintance 
between you.” 

“ I knew another girl of the same name,” answered 
Robinson. I never knew this Miss Miller except 
through Mr. Alden, and God knows I had no motive 
for wishing to injure her.” 

“ I guess that’s true enough,” said Elmendorf. 
“ But you took that money.” 

Robinson’s face was contorted with shame. 

“ It wasn’t her money,” he said. ‘‘ It would come 
out of Alden. She would never be a dollar poorer.” 

Alden had always treated you well.” 

Robinson groaned. 

“ Don’t,” he cried. “ I’m a thief. That’s all right. 
I was hard pressed by that Philadelphia matter. I 
would have returned the money soon. And as for 
Alden — ^he’s a rich man now ; he wouldn’t need it.” 

** That’s what they all think,” answered the de- 
tective. “ The other fellow doesn’t need his own 
property. But we can’t waste time on that; there’s 
a more serious crime here.” 

I did not strike that blow ! ” cried Robinson, in 
a tone like a suppressed scream. 


MR. ELMENDORF REMAINS HONEST. 


233 


Let’s hope not,” rejoined Elmendorf. “ At any 
rate this is what you did: You delivered that note; 
you saw Miss Miller open it; you went out of the 
room, leaving your cane behind you — a real accident, 
I believe.” 

“ It was,” said the prisoner earnestly. 

“ You got outside the house, and then remembered 
the cane,” continued Elmendorf. '' You got in again 
because of the defective catch of the lock. You went 
to her room. You knocked, eh?” 

“Yes; and thought some one said 'come in.'” 

“ But when you entered, you saw no one. Miss 
Miller was on the balcony, between the windows. On 
the table was the box into which she had put the 
money. It was closed. The lid had fallen down 
upon the bills, but the lock had caught. You saw 
the money sticking out, however.” 

“ I knew it was in there,” answered Robinson. “ I 
thought it would only be necesssary to raise the 
lid ” 

“ But when you found it was fast, you used the 
knife,” said Elmendorf. “You pried the lid open, 
tearing the bills in so doing, and breaking the point of 
the knife. I knew from the looks of the bills just what 
had happened to them, but it never occurred to me 
that the knife had been broken then. I couldn't even 
be sure that you had used it, and not your own.” ; 


234 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


“ I used it” said Robinson, “ and broke the blade.” 
“And the broken piece got caught in the bills,” 
said the detective, “ so that you put it into your pocket 
with them. Afterwards you found it; knew what it 
was; and wanted to make a decent use of your in- 
formation. Of course, you didn’t dare to show up 
with the piece of knife blade, so you took it to the 

hospital, the first time you went there ” 

“ That’s right ; I did,” answered the prisoner. “ I 
put it on the table. I hoped it would be found right 
away. Then I hid the money in Alden’s desk. I 
thought that was pretty smart; but when I got your 
note this morning, I saw the game was up.” 

“ And you tried to run away,” said Elmendorf with 
almost an accent of pity. “ Why didn’t you say : 
'What in blazes is this thing? How did this get 
into an envelope with my name on it?’ That would 
have put it on Alden.” 

“ I never thought of it,” answered Robinson. “ It 
was all over in a flash. I was scared, scared to death. 
It’s this murder! That’s what has hung over me. 
The terrible coincidence that it should have happened 
just after I took the money. My luck — you don’t 
know what my luck has been in this world ! ” 

“ It was a remarkable coincidence,” said Elmen- 
dorf dryly. “ There are people in my line of business 
who do not believe in that kind. And let me tell you 


MR. ELMENDORF REMAINS HONEST. 


235 


this; if there^s anything more than coincidence here, 
if, for instance. Miss Miller may have stepped into 
that room rather suddenly ” 

“Suddenly?” echoed Robinson. “It was all done 
in less than one second. If it had taken me any time 
to open that box and pocket that money, I never 
would have done it at all. But it was like a flash; 
like a single motion of my hand.” 

“ I was going to say,” continued Elmendorf, “ that 
now was the time to tell the truth. You stand a 
chance of going scot free, even iff it was you that 
struck her.” 

Robinson was weeping with excitement, and uncon- 
scious of the tears that were running down his cheeks. 

“ I swear to you in the sight of heaven,” he began ; 
and then, aware that he had fallen into melodrama, 
he checked himself, and tried anew. But Elmendorf 
interrupted. 

“ Oaths don’t mean anything,” he said ; “ the worst 
liars use them best. It’s the truth itself that’s con- 
vincing.” 

“ I have told you everything,” said the prisoner. 

Elmendorf leaned his shoulder against the iron 
frame of the door. 

“ I’m bound to tell you,” he said, after a pause, 
“ that you look like a guilty man.” 


236 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ I am/' replied the prisoner. ‘‘ I’m a thief ; and 
no doubt I look it.” 

Perhaps it may be that,” said Elmendorf, turning 
away. 

Then suddenly he wheeled about, and advancing, 
thrust his face against the bars. 

Don’t you say one word to anybody,” he whis- 
pered; “not to the old man upstairs, not to your 
lawyer, if they send one. Keep mum, do you hear.” 

Robinson’s fat body trembled like jelly as he gave 
the promise. 

Elmendorf left the region of cells and presently the 
building. He was at St. Winifred’s before six; and 
upon reaching the main corridor he immediately be- 
came aware that a nurse was beckoning to him from 
the far end of it, in a way that could hardly attract 
any other person’s attention even were she observed. 
The detective made no sign that he had seen anything 
in particular, but he strolled along the corridor until 
he came to the big bay window for convalescents, 
empty just now because of the hour. 

The nurse was leaning against one of the sashes 
that was raised to the level of her chin. Elmendorf 
took a chair, with his back against a pillar that di- 
vides the window, his face turned toward the cor- 
ridor. It may have been a distance of three feet from 
the nurse’s lips to the detective’s ear; but Elmendorf 


MR. ELMENDORF REMAINS HONEST. 


237 


seemed to be absorbed in an evening paper, and the 
nurse in the dusty flowers of the hospital garden. 

Alden looked in at St. Winifred’s a little later than 
6 o’clock, as was his custom before going to dinner. 
He had always left word where he should dine ahd 
had never gone far from the hospital. On this oc- 
casion he met Mr. Elmendorf at the head of the 
stairs by which one ascends from the street level 
within the structure. The most unobservant and pre- 
occupied person could not have failed to note that 
Elmendorf was possessed by an unusual excitement. 
Alden’s greeting was simply, What’s the matter ? ” 
and the words were spoken in great anxiety. 

Nothing — nothing at all,” replied Elmendorf. 
“ Miss Miller is better than ever. She ought to be 
dead after what she’s been through, but she isn’t. 
She’s fine, I assure you.” 

What has she been through ? ” demanded Alden, 
and the detective became singularly embarrassed. He 
would say nothing except that Elsie had had a hard 
day. 

But I’ve struck a little clue in the case,” he con- 
tinued, brightening. “ It looks to me like a sure thing. 
But don’t ask what it is just yet. All I want is the 
names of all the doctors you know in New York.” 

All the doctors I know ! ” echoed Alden in sur- 


238 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


prise. Isn’t that rather a large order ? How am 
I going to remember them all ? ” 

‘'We shan’t need absolutely all,” said the detective. 
“ You can skip the old ones and the fat ones and the 
short ones. In fact, I want a tall, thin, gaunt man, 
and if you could remember walking down Broadway 
with him awhile ago, perhaps two months ” 

Alden laughed gently. 

“ I say. Brother Elmendorf,” said he, “ you’re rat- 
tled, aren’t you ? ” 

“ Perhaps I am,” the detective admitted. “ This 
new clue absolutely stands my case on its head. It 
seems to prove squarely and fairly that everything I 
had figured on was not only wrong; it was upside 
down. However, let us not be hasty. Let us think 
about the doctors. I’ll take a list of them.” 

And he produced pencil and paper for that purpose. 
I “ Now,” said he, “ we’ll begin with A.” 

“ Tall, thin, young doctor, whose name begins with 
‘ A ?’ ” said Alden. “ I don’t know any ; but, passing 
to B, there’s Blair.” 

Elmendorf leaned back against the wall and put 
the pencil and paper into his pocket. 

“ Do you mean to tell me that you knew Dr. A. G. 
Blair before this case came up ? ” he asked in a sort 
of hopeless tone, almost laughable. 

“ Why, certainly,” replied Alden. “ I’d met him.” 


MR. ELMENDORF REMAINS HONEST. 


239 


You showed no sign of it over at Mrs. Sim- 
mons’s/’ said Elmendorf. 

Didn’t I? Well, the Lord knows what I did there. 
Blair certainly bowed to me.” 

** I was watching you” said Elmendorf. ** How- 
ever, this simplifies matters. You didn’t know Blair 
well?” 

** Not intimately. I’d met him several times, and,” 
he added, with a smile, I may have walked down 
Broadway with him, but I don’t remember.” 

“ It’s only a small matter,” said the detective, with 
a resumption of his usual demeanor. “ I want to ask 
Blair a question ; that’s all.” 

“ I’ll go over with you,” said Alden. “ Wait till 
I have seen Kendall.” 

He walked toward the doctor’s room and at the 
first turn of the hall encountered Brenda. 

** You were going to see Dr. Kendall ? ” she asked. 
“ Please wait in his room for me.” 

She hurried by him and reached the spot where 
Alden and the detective had stood, just as the latter 
was upon the stairs, for it had not suited Elmendorf’s 
purpose to wait for Alden. 

Brenda called to him, and he turned and reascended 
the steps. 

I must speak with you privately at once,” said 
she. ^‘Come.” 


240 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


She led Elmendorf to that bay window which he 
and the nurse had found convenient. They were par- 
tially shielded from observation, and could speak in 
guarded tones without much risk of being overheard. 

Mr. Elmendorf,’' she said, how could you do 
this thing? I have a serious wish to know.” 

“ I can do anything,” he answered, the picture of 
shame and woe. There’s absolutely no good in me. 
What made you think there was ? ” 

Do you remember that you rose when you saw that 
I was not seated,” said she, in Elsie’s room that first 
terrible day? That’s not much, but your manner was 
fully that of a gentleman.” 

“ I was trained in a gentleman’s home in Massa- 
chusetts,” said Elmendorf. “ So was the gentleman’s 
dog, and we both remained brutes.” 

You arranged a place to listen,” said Brenda, “ in 
that unused room next Elsie’s. The nurse who helped 
you confessed to Dr. Kendall not two minutes ago. It 
was she and not you who overheard the story told this 
afternoon.” 

She and not I ? ” echoed Elmendorf in a voice of 
the dead. Do you think I ever listened there ? Miss 
Maclane, there’s some limit even to what I will do. 
No, no; I took the chance; that’s all. This nurse, 
whom I seem to have got into a lot of trouble, as I 
always get everybody sooner or later — this nurse lis- 


MR. ELMENDORF REMAINS HONEST 


24 1 

tened when her duties would let her. I knew Miss 
Miller would some day tell her story to you.’’ 

‘‘ Now that you have heard the story, what shall 
you do?” asked Brenda. 

It seems evident,” replied Elmendorf, that Dr. 
Blair is the physician referred to in that story. He 
has known her secret from the beginning. That was 
why she had him here, to plead with him. Well, I’ve 
no faith in Blair. He’s crooked, or I’m no judge. But 
he seems to have played a fairly creditable part toward 
Elsie Miller. She said he struck her husband in the 
face.” 

Dr. Blair ! ” exclaimed Brenda. “ Think of his 
being called to dress her wound ! Think of his stand- 
ing there in that room with Neale and ourselves and 
keeping his own counsel so quietly! I begin to have 
an admiration for him.” 

Well, I wouldn’t go so far as that,” said Elmen- 
dorf. He has had his selfish ends to serve. How- 
ever, that is neither here nor there now. I am going 
to him and I shall make him tell me who that man is.” 

Her husband ? ” 

Yes.” 

Then what will you do? ” she asked. 

“ Find him,” said Elmendorf, “ and see that he 
gets what he deserves. This will afford me many dif- 
ferent kinds of satisfaction. Miss Maclane. I shall 


242 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


have credit for it in the newspapers, and they’re the 
only friends Fve got. My job will be safe for another 
yeiar at least, I shall beat Joe Neale, whom I hate 
devoutly, and, lastly, I shall get square with the cow- 
ard who struck down that little girl. I have longed 
for him ever since I first saw her. It’s a poor thing 
to do for her, but it’s all I ever can do, I’m afraid.” 

“ It is no service to her,” said Brenda ; “ far from 
it. You will reveal her secret.” 

Nothing can save that,” he replied. '' It is a 
mere dream to think it can be done.” 

“ It is not a dream,” rejoined Brenda. “ It shall 
be kept a secret if possible. She is wise to wish it, 
though of course she should tell Mr. Alden, and that 
she will do as soon as her mind gets back to its proper 
balance after its long strain with this wretched story. 
But she is right in thinking that publication of it 
will leave a stain upon her and perhaps bring many 
sorrows to herself and Mr. Alden. It will be dis- 
torted and redistorted in the telling, until the poor 
girl’s name can never be clear of it. And in any case 
I have given my word. Mr. Elmendorf, will money 
help?” 

Elmendorf was silent. 

“ I think you are not a man to take a bribe,” she 
began. 

“ Yes, I am,” said Elmendorf decisively, “ but not 


MR. ELMENDORF REMAINS HONEST. 


243 


just here. If the circumstances were different, why, 
I could be bought and sold like my associates. But 
this isn^t the time nor the place.” 

You would like to get out of this life into a 
better one,” said Brenda. 

“ I suppose most of us would,” replied Elmendorf, 
“ except that dying is disagreeable.” 

Brenda laughed, as one sometimes will at a funeral, 
from the effect of contrast. 

I didn’t mean that,” she said. “ I meant that 
you would like another way of earning your bread. 
And I think you might have very high ambitions in 
another career. My father will put you in the way of 
profitable business, but don’t fancy I would tempt 
you with an empty promise. I am rich in my own 
right by inheritance from my mother, and I will be 
glad to help you. We will give this a color of per- 
fectly honorable dealing, and it shall be so indeed. 
Take $50,000 of my money ” — it was the first sum that 
she happened to think of — select whatever business 
pleases you, and I will be a silent partner, an equal 
partner, in the enterprise.” 

^Tifty thousand dollars,” said Elmendorf, with 
awe in his tones. Why, Miss Maclane, this is what 
I have prayed for. The idea of a tenth of it is the 
explanation of my going on the force. And to think 


244 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


that it should come at last in a way that I can’t touch 
it ! ‘ Billy Elmendorf ’s luck/ as the boys say.” 

At this moment Kendall, passing through the cor- 
ridor hastily, glanced in toward the window. 

'' Brenda ! Come ! ” he said. "‘The nurse you left 
there has sent for me.” 

Brenda turned as white as paper. 

It is I who let her talk and excite herself this 
afternoon ! ” she said huskily. ** I may have killed 
her.” 

She turned and seized Elmendorf’s arm. 

“ One thing more,” she said almost in a whisper. 
“ Remember my promise and also remember this — 
that Elsie has not said it was her husband who struck 
the blow. Do not make an error now for your own 
sake and for — for all of us.” 

Elmendorf walked out of the hospital like one who 
has been dazed by a blow. He hurried in the direc- 
tion of Dr. Blair’s office, but in passing through a lit- 
tle park that was upon the way he suddenly stopped 
short and sat down upon a bench. 

I must think this thing out,” he said several times. 

I must go slow. Money, money, money for you, 
Billy Elmendorf, but you can’t touch it. Get down 
to business. Who did this thing? Who did it? I 
had it all as hard as iron once.” 


MR. ELMENDORF REMAINS HONEST. 


245 


He paused, staring at the hurrying people without 
seeing them. 

‘‘ Stick right to that,” he said at last, tapping with 
his right forefinger on the back of his left hand. 

There was a small piece of court plaster upon the 
spot which he touched, and his remark might have 
been addressed to that. It continued to stick very 
firmly, and Mr. Elmendorf's mind followed its ex- 
ample and stuck fast to the logic of the case. 


246 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE EVIDENCE OF DR. BLAIR. 

Dr. Blair^s office was beginning to gather the 
night shadows in its corners when Elmendorf en- 
tered, though the long June day was still bright with- 
out. The doctor was sitting on his couch, staring at 
the pretty pillow that Kendall had noticed. He had 
not troubled himself to rise as he called, ** Come in ! 
in response to the detective’s knock. 

“ Mr. Elmendorf,” said he, “ good evening, sir. 
What can I do for you ? ” 

** I want to ask you a few questions. Doctor,” re- 
plied Elmendorf. Hello ! Had a burglary ? ” 

He pointed to a desk in the corner that seemed to 
have been broken open. 

“ There was a blankbook that had contained a busi- 
ness memorandum,” he said, and it was locked up in 
that desk. A friend of mine was so anxious to see 
it that, calling in my absence, he did not wait for me 
to return. He broke the desk and got the book. But, 


THE EVIDENCE OF DR. BLAIR. 


247 


unluckily for him, I had already removed the page on 
which the memorandum appeared.” 

** Blackmail ? ” queried Elmendorf. 

“ Something of the sort,” was the reply, 

** If I can be of any assistance, let me know,” said 
the detective. “And now I want to talk about the 
case of Elsie Miller. There's a little medical 
point ” 

“ Why don't you ask Kendall ? ” 

“ Dr. Kendall is not talkative,” said Elmendorf, 

and ” 

“ Neither am I,” responded Blair. “ However, let's 
hear your question.” 

“ You remember,” said Elmendorf, seating himself 
and looking across the table in the center of the room, 
his arms resting upon it, “ that Miss Miller was 
stabbed in a peculiar way. There was a little mark, 
a scar you might call it, just below the collar bone 
on the left side ” 

“ The mark of what we call a ' green ' fracture,” 
said Blair; “that is, the bone was broken in youth. 
I understand she fell against a sharp point of some- 
thing while she was at play. The rib at that spot was 
permanently weakened and somewhat depressed after- 
ward, but not enough to interfere with the lung.” 

“ It was no disfigurement when she wore a low cut 
dress, was it ? ” asked Elmendorf. 


248 


EQUAL PARTNERS'. 


** Quite the contrary/’ replied Blair. “ It looked 
like a large dimple.” 

“ An ordinary man wouldn’t have known what it 
was, eh?” 

‘‘ Probably not.” 

“ The knife couldn’t have struck there by accident,” 
said Elmendorf. “ It looks to me like one of those 
freaks of a murderer who has brooded over the crime 
in advance.” 

Curious point,” said Blair. 

So it seemed to me,” said Elmendorf, “ and here’s 
another. Of course the man who stabbed her meant 
to kill her.” 

Certainly.” 

** A thief would have struck her on the head.” 
should think likely.” 

“ So this was a murder case,” said Elmendorf. 
“ There was the intention to kill. Now, why didn’t 
the murderer strike again ? ” 

“ He probably thought the wound was fatal,” re- 
sponded Blair. 

“ That’s the queer part of it,” said the detective. 

I wouldn’t have thought it was fatal. Most mur- 
derers go on stabbing; they strike half a dozen times 
in a sort of frenzy. This man was content with one 
blow, but it was a good one — if that knife blade 


THE EVIDENCE OF DR. BLAIR. 


249 


hadn’t been bent as well as broken. The break made 
little difference for the point was still sharp.” 

‘‘Was it bent?” inquired Blair. 

“ Yes,” was the reply. “ And if the assassin was 
one who knew the location of the vital organs, but 
was at the time too much excited to notice the defect 
in the instrument, why, then, that bend in the blade 
may have saved her life.” 

“ If it is saved,” added Blair. 

“ It was certainly saved for a time,” said the de- 
tective, “though every doctor who saw the wound 
immediately pronounced it fatal. That’s a point in 
the case.” 

“From which you conclude — what?” said Blair, 
rising and taking a seat opposite Elmendorf. 
i The detective did not immeditately answer the ques- 
tion. He seemed to be deep in thought. 

“By the way,” he said suddenly, “there’s another 
point, while I remember it. I mean that letter.” 

“What letter?” 

“ The one Alden wrote and Elsie never got,” re- 
plied Elmendorf. “ The postman really delivered it, 
of course, though he won’t testify positively. It was 
undoubtedly put by the servant under the door of the 
vestibule, that little hall leading to Miss Miller’s room. 
It was put under that door but not far enough.” 

“Not far enough?” 


250 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


‘‘ No. Somebody came along and pulled it out. If 
it happened to be a man who was in love with Miss 
Miller, the reading of it couldn’t have been pleasant. 
But how did the man get there?” 

'' I don’t know,” said Blair. 

As to the motive,” continued the detective, “that’s 
pretty clear now. Miss Miller has told about her 
marriage. She hasn’t named the man, but you know 
him.” 

“Yes,” said Blair; “I know him.” 

He took up a very little bottle from the table and 
began to turn it idly in his hands. 

“ Now, then,” said Elmendorf, “let’s recapitulate. 
The murderer was a man who knew of that scar.” 

“ Anybody might have seen that,” rejoined Blair. 

“ He knew what it was, ” continued Elmendorf. 
“ He also was a man who at the first glance believed 
the wound which he had inflicted to be fatal. We 
conclude that he was a doctor.” 

“Very pretty,” said Blair. 

“The individual subsequently tried to poison Miss 
Miller,” said the detective, “and his way of doing it 
bears out the theory that he was one who had a 
knowledge of medicine. He knew just what poison 
to employ, and he guessed that there would be some 
sort of food substance in the room into which the 


THE EVIDENCE OF DR. BLAIR. 


251 


poison could be put. Now, besides being a doctor, 
what was he?'’ 

“ A scoundrel, I should say," replied Blair. 

“ He was a man who could go in and out of Mrs. 
Simmons's house when he pleased," said Elmendorf. 
‘‘He was not one who depended upon any imperfect 
catch of a door. Perhaps he had lived in the house 
and had never given up his key. Anyhow it is certain 
that he went to see Miss Miller at 9 o'clock in the 
morning, an hour when most men would not think 
they had a right to call, but one who claimed to be 
her husband might. He saw that letter sticking out 
from under the door. He stole it, and he said after 
reading it, ‘ If not mine, then no man’s.' He was 
a murderer in his heart, then." 

“ You mean to imply," said Blair, “ that he had been 
accustomed to go in and out of that house without 
ringing the bell; that he was her husband, though 
she would not see him except when he presented him- 
self at her door to plead and to be sent away, with 
his heart on fire. Well, I think that may be true." 

“ Undoubtedly," said Elmendorf, “but who was the 
man?" 

There was a rap at the door, and Blair said “ Ex- 
cuse me" quite conventionally as he crossed the room 
to open it. He exchanged some words with a servant 
and for a few seconds stood outside, but his left hand 


252 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


was always visible upon the door, as Elmendorf care- 
fully noted. When he returned to his seat, he set down 
the very small bottle upon the table. 

I had reasoned so far, early in the case,^^ continued 
Elmendorf, '‘and had even made an experiment with 
a person whom I had suspected. I cut my hand and 
let him bandage it, though that proved not to be 
necessary, for the man acquitted himself instantly by 
saying that I had cut ‘ an artery ’ when there was 
plainly no arterial bleeding, to say nothing of the 
location of the injury. So he surely wasn’t a doctor.” 

“ You seem to be quite an educated man,” said 
Blair dreamily. “ Have you learned anything in this 
life that would help you lead another if you had one ? ” 

“Very little, I’m afraid,” said Elmendorf; “but 
let us proceed. I had proved that the man was a 
doctor, and then came the Philadelphia story. You 
know what happened over there. The husband ran 
out for a doctor. That floored me at first, and I had 
to think it out.” 

“ I was afraid she was poisoned,” said Blair calmly, 
“ and dared not be alone with her if she should die.” 

“ You ! ” exclaimed Elmendorf, rising. “ Yofl ! 
Well ” — and he sat down again — “ it doesn’t surprise 
me. 

“ You came here to get me,” responded Blair. “ I 
knew it as soon as you sat down there. I had no 


THE EVIDENCE OF DR. BLAIR. 


253 


chance, though she promised to shield me in return 
for my clearing Miss Maclane. She’d have done it 
anyway, of course. That, she had already proved. 
She was ashamed, ashamed, deadly ashamed, and 
sick to the soul of her for having ever loved me. Well, 
it’s all over. If you know what happened in Phila- 
delphia, it only remained for you to find the New 
York doctor. He’s in Europe, however; left a week 
or more ago. His name is Osborne. Any more in- 
formation I can give you, Mr. Elmendorf? It’s all 
up. I might as well talk.” 

“ Why didn’t you run ? ” demanded Elmendorf. 

I staid to play the game out,” replied Blair. 
“ There was money in view, and I love money, my 
friend: also I love life. How absurd, but I do — now 
that it’s over! Think of it! And there isn’t a man 
in New York this minute as wretched as I am. Why, 
I’d just heard from the hospital, and I was sitting 
there on that couch, staring at the pillow she made 
for me, thinking of the endless stitches and the love 
— Elmendorf, she told me that every one of them 
was sewed with love for me. Why does that stick in 
my mind? Why couldn’t I be straight? Well, well. 
I’m done for — done for ! ” 

Elmendorf eyed the man curiously. His face was 
flushed as if with fever, and his words were thickly 
uttered and hurried, as in delirium. 


254 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


** She would have betrayed me,” he muttered. 
** They would have made her do it. I had to protect 
myself, and then I couldn’t — I couldn’t see her pass 
away from me, feeling as she did, despising me — I 
couldn’t see her go to some one else. How can any 

man bear that ? And yet I wish ” 

“You wish you hadn’t tried to poison her,” said 
Elmendorf. “ It’s a little too cold blooded and brutal 

even for you. You despicable ” 

“He hesitated, seeking a word that would charac- 
terize the man, while he studied Blair’s face as the 
wretched creature sat huddled in his chair wringing 
his thin hands. 

“ You didn’t get the money,” said Elmendorf. “ I 
know all about that now.” 

“ Money 1 ” echoed Blair. “ For the first time in 
my life I forgot that there was such a thing. I read 
that letter, as you guessed, and I was crazed. I knew 
she was holding her secret, and would put him off for 
shame, and because she treasured up something he 
had said that frightened her — about some woman who 
ran away to be married. Well, I went there that 
afternoon; I talked with her, raved at her and then 
— well, you know what happened. I thought every- 
one would know I did it. We had had more meetings 
in the last few weeks than you’d believe possible,” 
he rambled on, “but then nobody cares what his 


THE EVIDENCE OF DR. BLAIR. 


255 


neighbor does here in New York. Our whole ro- 
mance passed without notice. I was on the balcony 
when Robinson came.’’ 

“ Did you know that he returned ? ” asked Elmen- 
dorf. 

‘‘ Returned?” 

“ He left his cane in the room, got outside the house, 
got in again because the lock hadn’t caught and en- 
tered the room, thinking that he had heard an answer 
to his knock. There was the money in the box on 
the table, and nobody in sight, you and Miss Miller 
being on the balcony between the windows. He 
needed money, and he took it, and I traced it* 
The man’s at Headquarters now.” 

I thought Neale got the money,” said Blair, start- 
ing as if from a doze. 

“ Robinson will be released,” said Elmencjorf. 
“ There’ll be no complaint. This whole case will be 
covered up.” 

“ Covered up ? ” echoed Blair, and he laughed. 

I’ll be covered up — in my grave, and, by , El- 

mendorf. I don’t want to die ! I don’t want to die ! ” 
Can you understand that?” 

‘‘Don’t die, then,” said, Elmendorf; “there’s no 
need of it. I shan’t trouble you. I could make a lot 
of money by letting you alone, and I’m going to do 
it for nothing, or, to be exact, I’m going to do it for 


256 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Elsie Miller. You’ll go scot free, Blair, you black- 
hearted, lying brute ! ” 

Blair suddenly rose to his feet. He seemed to be 
impossibly tall as he stood there with raised shoulders 
and clinched hands, staring down at Elmendorf. 

“ Do you mean to say that you have not come here 
to take me ? ” he demanded. 

That’s what I mean,” said Elmendorff. You 
can go where you please, and you’d better go as fast 
as you can, for Alden may be here at any moment. 
Perhaps you have observed certain physical peculiari- 
ties of Mr. Alden? I seem to hear your bones crack, 
Blair, in his hands.” 

Blair gave utterance to a terrible oath. 

Do you know what I have done ? ” he cried in 
a voice that sent a chill to Elmendorf’s heart. ‘‘ Look 
here!” 

He lifted the small bottle and then dashed it down 
to shivers. 

“ I’m done for ! I’ve taken enough of that to kill 
three men. No electric chairs for me. And now — I 
might have lived! I might have gone abroad. I 
could have had money — found a new life; but I’m a 
dead man.” 

He had wrenched open the door of a locker upon 
the wall, but at the last words he turned to launch a 
frightful curse at Elmendorf. 


THE EVIDENCE OF DR. BLAIR. 


257 


“ I may save myself/’ he babbled, and there was a 
rattling of bottles in the cupboard. ** This is it. 
Great heavens! There is hardly enough. Bring me 
that water.” 

Elmendorf started to comply, but his speed did not 
equal Blair’s impatience, and the latter sprang forward 
so that they came together. There was a tinkling of 
glass upon the floor. 

Blair sprang back, his face dripping, and ghastly 
red with the poison. 

“ It’s all I have ! ” he cried. “ It’s my last chance ! 
And you — you did it ! ” 

With incredible strength and suddenness he seized 
a heavy paperweight from the table and aimed a fear- 
ful blow at Elmendorf. The detective reeled for an 
instant and then fell face downward upon the floor, 
where he lay perfectly still. 

Blair glanced at him once, then rushed to a mirror 
near the window and stared at his own livid face. 

** There may be time ! ” he gasped, one hand clutch- 
ing his breast. “ If I can get to a drug store ” 

He seized his hat instinctively and rushed to the 
door, through which he passed into the hall. 

Dr. Blair,” said a remembered voice, I must 
speak with you. Come back with me. Where is El- 
mendorf ? Have you seen him ? ” 

Frantic, he tried to shake off the hand that was on 


0^8 EQUAL PARTNERS. 

his arm, but the hand was of iron. He babbled unin- 
telligible words. 

Poison ! ” cried Alden. Who is poisoned ? 
Come back here to the light.’’ 

And he thrust Blair into the office, practically carry- 
ing the man at arm’s length. Utterly insane with the 
fear of death, Blair struck at his captor vainly and 
screamed like a child. 

Elmendorf was struggling to his feet as they en- 
tered, and Alden uttered a cry at the sight of him. 

“ Did he do this ? ” he exclaimed, pointing at Blair, 
whom he had released. 

Elmendorf pressed his hand upon his hair, which 
was wet with blood. 

“Yes,” he said hoarsely; “this — and the other!” 

Alden paused an instant, the strength of his body 
gathering for effort. Then he leaped forward and 
seemed to pass half through, half over, the body of 
Blair, as if it had been a ghost in garments. Turning, 
he saw Blair lying upon the floor, his limbs contorted, 
his face bearing the unmistakable stamp of death. 

Elmendorf staggered forward and knelt beside the 
body. 

“ We’re going to keep her secret,” he said. “ Her 
name must not appear in this. We must see what the 
man has in his pockets and in the room. Some of 
these fellows make strange memoranda.” 



ELMENDORF STAGGERED FORWARD AND KNELT BESIDE THE BODY. 


Page 2^8. 




THE EVIDENCE OF DR. BLAIR. 


259 


“ Brenda has told me the story,” said Alden. “ It 
could not be concealed. In fact, I had got so much 
from the nurse you bribed that the remainder mattered 
little. And this man was her husband, this cowardly 
wretch, this assassin of women ! ” 

“ He was also an inventor of women,” said Elmen- 
dorf. “ And I never knew a shrewder trick.” 

‘‘ Do you mean that he lied about seeing one ? ” 

“ There was no mysterious woman in the case,” re- 
plied Elmendorf. “ It was a pure fiction and worthy 
of its author. He was clever, and for a thorough- 
going scoundrel Hello ! What's this ? ” 

He had drawn a sheet of paper from Blair’s pocket, 
and after a glance at it he handed it to Alden, who 
read that Arthur Gordon Blair and Joseph Neale, 
captain of police, were equal partners. 


26 q 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. 

The document appeared to possess the power of a 
spell, for while Alden held it in his hands he heard 
one heavy blow upon the door, and then Neale himself 
strode into the room. 

“ What’s this ? ” he demanded. ‘‘ Elmendorf, didn’t 
I tell you to let this man alone ? ” 

“ I’ll let him alone now, captain,” said Elmendorf. 
“ You can bury him. And see that you bury every- 
thing else too. This whole case is on the quiet. I can 
steer things at headquarters with a little money, Mr. 
Alden, and Joe Neale must take care of the precinct. 
This is a mysterious suicide, Neale; due probably to 
financial trouble or ill health. It has no relation to the 
case of Miss Miller.” 

“ Since when did I take orders from you ? ” cried 
Neale. 

“ Since I got hold of this,” replied Elmendorf, show- 
ing the partnership agreement. “ I know the whole 
game, Neale, and you can’t stand it just now.” 


THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. 


261 


“ That’s off anyhow,” said Neale, with deep bitter- 
ness. “ Duncan Maclane was too smart. He has got 
the Holbein Company’s option himself, for the gent 
who was to have been his son-in-law, of course.” 

And he bowed grotesquely to Alden. 

“ Maclane smelled a rat after he had given up to 
Blair,” he continued, “ and so he stepped in ahead of 
us. And now, Elmendorf, I’m willing to call this 
thing a draw on your terms. I’ll attend to matters 
here strictly on the quiet, and you take care of your 
own end of it as well as you can. Is it a go? ” 

“ It is,” replied the detective. “ As soon as I get 
my head patched up I’ll go down to Headquarters and 
get Robinson out or start things moving that way. 
And you, Mr. Alden ? ” 

I am going back to St. Winifred’s,” was the reply. 

When Alden reached the hospital, he went at once 
to Kendall’s room, from which place he sent word of 
his arrival. Both the doctor and Brenda presently 
joined him. 

“ The danger is all over,” said Kendall, taking Al- 
den’s hand. “ This last attack of faintness was to be 
expected; but I do not look for any recurrence. But 
how is it with you? Something serious has hap- 
pened ? ” 

Alden told them simply and directly just what had 
occurred. 


262 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


She is free, then ? ” exclaimed Brenda. 

“ Yes, and partly by my hand,” he replied. Brenda, 
I am glad of it. I am glad to have been concerned in 
that man's death. I am more than half a savage. 
From the first instant, when I learned that Elsie had 
been struck down, I had scarcely more than one idea, 
one passion — the desire for vengeance. I wanted to 
kill with my own hands the man who had done this 
thing. All softer feelings were swallowed up in that 
one desire.” 

“ It produced a singular effect,” said Kendall, with 
a shudder. 

You mean that I seemed to be guilty of this 
crime?” said Alden calmly. “Well, there was mur- 
der in my heart at the time, you see, and I cannot 
blame any who misjudged me. And, now, Brenda,” 
he said, drawing himself up and clinching his white 
and delicate hands that gave so little hint of their 
enormous strength, “ I am glad that I can go to her 
and tell her that he is dead; that that dreadful night- 
mare of the past need not hang over her ; that all these 
horrors ” 

“ My friend,” said Brenda, checking him, “ you will 
do nothing of the kind.” 

He asked her in surprise what she might mean. 

“You will utter no such violent sentiments,” she 
said. “ Elsie believes herself a sinner. She looks 


THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. 


263 


upon that folly as if it were a terrible offense, and, 
what is much more important, she believes that you 
will so regard it. She thinks that you will look upon 
her as a girl disgraced by her own act and saved by 
chance. The whole matter has assumed a shape ut- 
terly monstrous in her eyes. Now, what will you do 
— ^thank God in her presence that the dreadful drama 
closed with your hands upon Blair’s throat? Never, 
never! You will be very gentle always. You will say 
to her in the beginning that you love her dearly and 
that nothing else mattery in the least. You will speak 
as little as possible of this tangle of crime. It is not 
important. Do you comprehend? Love is what mat- 
ters. Throughout these first difficult days and for all 
your life you will do the same thing. You will help 
her to forget that such men as Blair are in the world ; 
that she ever met one of them. It won’t be a forbidden 
topic. Oh, far from that; merely a matter not worth 
brooding over in a world full of sunshine and love.” 

Brenda,” said he, “ this is the flower of wisdom. 
I think I might have erred in a way that would have 
taken a long time to set right. Can I see her now ? ” 

“ I think you can,” said Kendall — '' now.” 

And with the last word he looked at Brenda. Alden 
understood. 

I shall be all that you wish me to be,” he said. 

So Brenda went on to prepare the way ; Kendall and 


264 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


Alden following in a few minutes. It was as if the 
doctor had come upon his ordinary visit at that hour, 
and Alden, by special permission, to say good night; 

If Kendall had not found his patient wonderfully 
strong, she would have heard no news that night; 
but he was once more amazed at the girl's invincible 
Vitality. Rising from his chair by the bed, he gave 
the nod to Alden, and went to stand with Brenda by 
the window where they could see the moon rising over 
the low eastern wing of the building. Alden's voice 
came to them in detached phrases, whispered words 
almost without meaning except to the pale and beauti- 
•ful girl who lay with closed eyes, listening. What 
they themselves said was little different; they could 
not have repeated a word of it afterwards, nor have 
told another person what it was they had talked about. 

They were surprised when Alden, who had been 
kneeling by the bed, rose, and, bending down, kissed 
Elsie's hand with the lingering tenderness that means 
good by. It seemed he could not have had time to 
tell her all. 

“Good night, Clarence," said Brenda softly, but 
with great good cheer. 

He took the hand which she extended, and as he 
ilooked into her face the tears suddenly sprang into 
his eyes. He tried to find the right words, but the man 
had not much gift of elegant language and could say 


THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. 


265 


only what he had said before: “You are true blue, 
Brenda. You always were.^^ 

When the two men had gone, Brenda sat down by 
the bed, taking Elsie’s hand, which was tightly closed 
as it had been all the time that Alden was holding it. 

“ Only love matters,” said Brenda. “ There’s really 
nothing else.” 

“ That’s what he told me,” replied Elsie ; “ and 
I” 

“ Well,” said Brenda, after a little pause, “ what did 
you say? I didn’t hear a word.” 

Elsie maintained her silence for half a minute ; then 
she said, witl: seeming irrelevancy: 

“ Did you ever see a vaudeville act that is announced 
on the bill as Signor Somebody’s wonderful perform- 
ance on the aerial ladder? No? Well, there’s the lad- 
der, when the curtain goes up, a tall spiral with little 
stations on it like a railroad round a sharp-pointed 
mountain. On the top is a big ball, big enough for a 
small man to get inside of ; and presently it begins to 
move. It comes slowly down the ladder, and you 
think it must fall and break the Signor’s bones. But 
it doesn’t. It stops at the stations, and goes on again, 
with many little jumps and ‘jiggers,’ so that you 
have to laugh at it, though you’re scared, too, some- 
times, when it nearly rolls over the edge. Finally it 
gets to the bottom, and two supers rush out to unscrew 


266 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


the top. The band plays, and you can hear the people 
hitching around in their chairs to get a good view of 
the clever little man when he steps out. Then off 
comes the lid — 'which is really a half of the ball — and 
the audience gasps with amazement. The thing is 
empty! There isn’t any Signor. All the funny jig- 
gering, the starting and stopping, the risks and the 
escapes, are caused by the electric spiral acting on the 
ball. It’s all in the shape and nature and force of the 
stairway that the ball rolls down. 

“ That’s like me, Brenda; like most women, perhaps. 
I roll along the way laid out for me, and seem to do 
this or that because I wish ; but it’s all in the path, all 
in the electric current of circumstances. I’m an empty 
sphere. Let me thank heaven that the look of me 
pleases people, for a little while, and that the winding 
stair is now so soft and tender of me. 

“ I love him, Brenda, and I shan’t resist any longer. 
He loves me, the poor empty girl without brains or 
character. I wish I had both, but as I am, if he loves 
me, he may surely have me. And he says he does ; he 
has always said so ; and there is nothing I would rather 
hear. Do you see this ? ” 

She opened her hand suddenly, and Brenda saw a 
bit of paper in the palm. 

“ His message that he sent in the violets,” said 
Elsie. “ Read it.” 


THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. 267 

“ The mysterious message,” said Brenda ; only 
three words : ‘ I love you ! ’ ” 

“ That’s all there is in the world,” responded Elsie, 
closing^ her eyes. 

* * * sk 5j{ 

Some days later, Brenda was walking in the hospital 
garden, in the early evening. Kendall came toward 
her from the tall iron gate that opened upon the street. 

Who was it with you ? ” asked Brenda. '' I 
seemed to recognize his figure. Mr. Elmendorf, of 
course ! ” 

“Yes; it was Elmendorf,” replied Kendall. “He 
looked in for a minute, thinking Alden might he here. 
He’s coming back. How is Elsie after that big 
dinner ? ” 

“ In the best of health and spirits,” answered 
Brenda. “ Her mother is with her. But to return to 
Mr. Elmendorf, I wish we might do something for 
him. He was certainly very clever, and we owe him 
much.” 

“ He suppressed that story,” replied Kendall, “ in 
a way I wouldn’t have thought possible. Blair’s death 
passed as a mysterious suicide, and there hasn’t been a 
question. But Elmendorf had Neale in his hands, and 
Neale has a strong pull. So that accounts for it. As 
for Elmendorf, I like him. He is a gentleman, though 
he can’t believe it himself. And for his prospects. 


268 


EQUAL PARTNERS. 


there’s no cause for anxiety. Alden will look out for 
him, now that the great and mysterious * trust ’ scheme 
has come to such success. Elmendorf is pulling back, 
but Alden’s will is a hard thing to stand in the way of, 
whether it’s good will or ill. In the end you may be 
sure that ‘ the force ’ will lose an honest man and 
mighty shrewd detective — a loss it can ill afford. But 
just at present,” he added, in a changed tone, “ I’m 
more interested in my own loss.” 

Yours?” 

I ‘‘You are going to-morrow.” 

“ Yes,” said Brenda; “ her mother being here, I am 
no longer needed.” 

“ It is time you were out of the city, too,” said 
Kendall. “ I must not be selfish. You will go to Far- 
away, I suppose ? It is a beautiful estate. I remember 
driving by, in the early summer of ” 

“ The next time you drive by,” interrupted Brenda, 
“you will come in — if I may be allowed the bull. 
Really I count upon seeing you there this summer. 
When Elsie is well enough I shall have her and her 
mother — a very lovely and cultivated woman, isn’t 
she?” 

“ Indeed she is,” responded Kendall. “I was 
agreeably surprised, for you can’t always count upon 
a generation back, even in the first circles. But about 
my poor self; Brenda, do you think I’d better come? 


THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. 


269 


I won’t say another word except that. Look at me; 
I carry the question written on my face. Shall I 
come ? ” 

As one goes eastward,” said Brenda, smiling, “ the 
main gate is just beyond the firs; but there is a bridle 
path from the south which is nearer, from the 
village ” 

“ I will come on horseback,” said Kendall. 


THE END. 


ECCENTRICITIES OF GENIUS 

By Major J. B. Pond. 


READ WHAT IS SAID OE IT. 


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One of the most simple, naive and 
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It fairly reeks with personality. . . . 
No man living has had such interest- 
ing association with so many inter- 
esting people.” — Home Journal. 

“ Adorned by many pictures, never 
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Possesses unparalleled attrac- 
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“ Major Pond goes deep into his 
subject, furnishing pen-portraits that 
are admirably clear and graphic.” — 
The Mail and Express. 

'* The whole book, stuffed as it is 
with anecdotes and extracts from 
personal letters, is marvelously inter- 
esting.” — Boston Transcript. 


“All the world loves a teller of 
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them so much of entertaining reading 
as is found in Major Pond's 600 pages 
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dotes of many sorts.” — Chicago Even^ 
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“Originality stamps the volume, 
copiously illustrated with portraits.” 
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It is a handsome octavo volume, 5| x 8f inches, of 620 pages, with nearly 
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I 


12 lifiOl 


AUG 7 1901 





